20
CA-NET RS-232 Remote Control Protocol
Updated for CA40, CA120, CA120HZ, CA200z, DAM514 and DAM614
JANUARY 2016
The built-in RS-232 port in the rear panel of the CA and DAM series devices allows for an
external device communication via a serial connection. This kind of connection uses a
syntax which is very similar to the one used in the Ecler TP-NET protocol: it lets a client
device get from and/or set the values of several parameters of a CA / DAM device (for
instance, the CA40, CA120, CA120HZ or CA200z digital amplifiers or the DAM514 /
DAM614 audio digital mixers), like volumes, mutes, equalisation tones, etc.
The RS-232 serial communication must fulfil the following specifications:
Baud rate:
9600 (fixed, no auto-negotiation)
Data bits:
8
Parity:
None
Stop bits:
1
Flow control:
None
It’s not allowed to have more than one simultaneous access from
several clients to the
same CA / DAM device using the RS232 connection.
The protocol is simple and direct, syntax-friendly, making it easy to read, write and modify
the generated code. It is based on messages with no begin delimiter: each message is self-
delimited by the RS232 packet size, which is defined with a maximum of
80 ASCII
characters
, and always including
the character
LF
(0x0A)
at the end of each message. All
the messages must be written in
CAPITAL LETTERS
.
To let some control systems (like EXTRON®, CRESTRON®, AMX®, RTI®, VITY®, MEDIALON®,
etc.) process the messages more easily, the CA / DAM device adds the character
LF
(0x0A)
at the end of each message it sends. This way the client of the CA / DAM device can buffer
the received messages to process them, when required. The CA / DAM device can also
handle several messages received in a single RS232 packet by using the
LF
delimiter.
The available messages are built with one or more fields separated with blank spaces (
= blank space):
<TYPE> [PARAM1] [PARAM2] [PARAM3] [PARAM4][LF]
The first field (
TYPE
) defines the
message type
and then, the required parameters for it
(each kind of message requires a given number of parameters). The field
TYPE
can have
these values:
•
GET
