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texasyojimbo / relayngel

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relayngel

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v 1.2

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author: AD5NL (jim.dallas@gmail.com)

date: 17 March 2019

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CREDITS This project is based on several other projects:

  1. The base for relayngel.py is reverseapi.py, written by Edouard F4EXB as part of his SDRAngel project: https://github.com/f4exb/sdrangel. Some of the Reverse API code is directly copied from there.

  2. I also was inspired by some code posted on Amazon user "M" who posted some basic Python code for the Sainsmart 1982-USB4CH device. This was very necessary given that the SainSmart documentation is simply wrong, and the FTDI documentation does not really discuss Python much. Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1H80WYYIJ66JK/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B009A524Z0

LICENSE This code is free-to-use by anyone for any-purpose, provided credited authors above are given their due.

PURPOSE The purpose of this code is to expand upon F4EXB's code to integrate SDRAngel with USB relay controller boards. This will allow the user to control antenna switches, amplifiers, bandpass filters, etc. via SDRAngel.

SUPPORTED DEVICES

Currently supported relay boards:

  1. FTDI FT245R based devices, such as the Sainsmart 4 Channel USB Relay, as well as similar boards sold under the Quimat brandname. These use white PCBs marked with "1982-USB4CH" on them. Similar boards will probably also work, but as this was tested with a 4-channel relay, only the first four relays will currently work.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-USB-Channel-Relay-Automation/dp/B07CSJ16W4

  1. CH340/341 based devices such as the SMAKN LCUS-1 USB relay (also sold under other names). These use blue PCBs with one relay. Similar devices may also work, but only one relay will currently work.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/SMAKN%C2%AE-LCUS-1-module-intelligent-control/dp/B01CN7E0RQ

  1. As an alternative to using hardware, or to support other hardware using external processes, I have added a PROCESS "relay" that can call an executable. For example, if you wanted to call a shell script or batch file everytime you start or stop transmission.

REQUIREMENTS To use this you will need:

1.SDRAngel 4.5 or higher (Reverse API was added in 4.4.x but this was built and tested against 4.5). Link: https://github.com/f4exb/sdrangel

  1. Python 2.7. Note that this should work on both Linux and Windows. I have tested on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on x86-64 as well as Windows 7 on x86-64 I highly recommend using pip to install modules.

3.The "Flask" Python module (pip install Flask).

  1. The FTDI D2XX drivers. Note that the Kernel drivers in Ubuntu don't quite work (I believe they are for VCP).

  2. On Windows -- you will need to get CH340 driver.

  3. The ftd2xx Python module (pip install ftd2xx).

  4. On Windows -- the pywin32 Python module (C:\Python27\python -m pip install pywin32), and the pyserial module (C:\Python27\python -m pip install pyserial).

  5. git (recommended)

NOTE REGARDING LINUX KERNEL DRIVER

  1. You will probably want to blacklist the ftdi_sio kernel driver if you are using Linux. The can cause a DEVICE_NOT_FOUND error.

CONFIGURATION To configure, you will need to edit config.xml.

The root tag in config.xml is .

Each relay board device will need its own node with a tag.

The child nodes under each associate relay actions with SDRAngel device actions.

Example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

Note that the first sets up a Quimat 4-channel relay board (same as Sainsmart). For the FTDI_1982-USB4CH type devices, serial_number is mandatory (look at dmesg). But port and baud should be left blank or omitted.

The first child node has an index of 0. The "on" attribute describes what relays should be closed when the SDRAngel device is activated (receiving or transmitting). Since the FTDI_1982-USB4CH device has four relay channels, there are four comma-separated values. 1 means closed/on, 0 means open/off, and ? means null. The "off" attribute has similar behavior.

Suppose you have a low-noise amplifier connected to relay 4. You would want it "on" when device #0 is receiving, and off when it is not. That is why the fourth value in the "on" attribute is "1" for the first ("?,?,?,1"). We would want the amplifier off when we are not using device 0, so that is why the "off" attribute is set to "?,?,?,0". We don't want changes to device 0 to affect the other three relays, so they are set to null. Note that the second will cause those other three relays to switch when device 1 is activated.

The delay_on and delay_off attributes specify a delay (in milliseconds) before the channel is switched on or off.

For the CH341_LCUS-1, the situation is a bit simpler as there is only one relay. However, you could add more than two devices; for example if you had four different source devices configured in SDRAngel, you could have four tags, each with different behaviors associated with it.

For PROCESS, stdout and stderr are sent to /dev/null. If you require logging of process output, then you should include that in your shell/batch script.

USE

Linux: Once you have hardware connected and the config.xml file prepared, you should start the Flask server by running relayngel.sh.

Windows: Once you have hardware connected and the config.xml file prepared, you should start the Flask server by running relayngel.bat.