Serial Instruction Set
Everything you need to know about controlling ESPER TriggerBox from your own software. Learn about
set-up procedure, camera trigger notes and command modes.
Set-up procedure
1.
Connect TriggerBox to the computer.
2.
Ensure box switch is set to blue mode.
3.
Ensure OS has identified TriggerBox as USB Serial Port (Windows)/ FT232R USB UART (Mac).
4.
Drivers should install automatically. If not, the latest COM port drivers can be found at:
www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm?
Any TriggerBox running firmware 1.2 will communicate at 115200baud, no stop bits, no parity bit.
Instructions to the TriggerBox must be printed using standard ASCII encoding. Any instructions sent to
the box must end with a \n (newline) character. The TriggerBox acts as a basic COM port, which must
be opened and closed after every session. The specifics of opening and closing COM ports are
platform/software dependant, refer to your software/library user guide.
The first character of an instruction specifies either an action to be performed immediately, e.g. "S" to
fire shutters, or defines a programmable parameter, e.g. "s000111" to enable only the last three
shutter outputs. TriggerBox settings can be saved to the internal memory (EEPROM) through the "O"
command. Upon power-up the box will recall saved settings, negating the need to program again.
Any timing value sent to the TriggerBox is in milliseconds, and has a valid range of 0 to 30,000
milliseconds.
Camera trigger notes
Many cameras require that their focus input is asserted before they will react to a shutter signal. This
depends on the make, model and camera settings. If possible, it is advised to set the camera to full
manual exposure mode and disable autofocus to achieve the most consistent timings.
Different cameras respond at different rates to the combination of asserting the focus line followed by
the shutter line. Therefore, it is sometimes required to insert a delay between the focus command and
shutter command.
Tip:
Many common camera model performance values can be found at
http://www.imaging-resource.com/cameras/reviews/. While these values may not be definitive for
every use case, they are a good starting point.
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Summary of Contents for TriggerBox
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