Comander Perimeter Security System
Engineering and Installation Manual
Page 9 of 72
The Relay Rack (or Master in the case of a chain) is connected to one of the
Comander's COM ports. The COM port settings must be configured appropriately (see
section 2.5.3 below) and the total number of relays must be entered in the Hardware
Configuration page of the Comander Configurator (see section 2.5.4.3 below).
Only one COM port on each Comander Rack will normally be
configured for a Relay Rack. Relay racks can be connected to
additions COM ports, but relays attached to any additional ports
cannot be controlled independently of those connected to the
first – they simply inherit the state of the corresponding relay on
the first Relay Rack output.
1.3.2.2 Connecting Third-Party Serial Devices
The Comander Rack serial ports can be used to connect together a wide range of third-
party devices as well as Geoquip units, using the very flexible range of configuration
options provided on the serial ports. Typical applications include devices which
annunciate alarms (such as legacy Geoquip MicrAlert units), devices which control and
manage sensors (PTZ control of cameras, weather monitoring systems, fire-panels,
UPS monitors etc), access control systems, and time synchronisation devices.
To support a wide range of devices and functions, the Comander's serial ports have a
number of configuration options - full details of how to configure the ports for different
devices and purposes are provided in section 2.5.3 below.
1.3.2.3 Using Comander's Ethernet as a Serial Device Transport
A particularly useful function for third-party serial devices is that the Comander Ring (or
a simpler point-to-point Ethernet link between two Comander Racks) can act as a
transparent transport over which two serial devices can communicate. If you connect
one serial device to one Rack and another serial device to a different Rack, the two
serial ports can be configured to communicate over the Comander network as if they
were using a direct serial cable connection.
Examples of this type of use include serial smoke detection devices communicating
with fire-panels, camera matrix devices communicating with PTZ controls on a remote
(usually analogue) camera, or remote weather stations communicating with a
monitoring device located in a Control Room.
When planning a Comander system which provides serial links across the Ethernet
connections, it is important to configure the system so that each connection is allocated
a unique TCP, UDP, or SSL/TLS port number. This ensures that devices do not
interfere with each other when communicating over the network. Details of how to
allocate port numbers to serial data connections are provided in section 2.5.3 below.
1.4 Other Comander Connections
Other connections provided on the Comander rear panel are listed below.
1.4.1 "Rugby" Connector
The rear panel of the Rack has a dedicated socket for connecting a Geoquip Rugby
Receiver Module. This receives the standard UK Rugby time signal, and can be used
to provide a time synchronisation source for the system.
1.4.2 Audio Connector
As well as being processed to generate alarm information, the audio data captured by
the Interceptor cables can also be monitored using an amplifier and loudspeaker. The
Audio connector on the Comander rear panel is a 3.5mm mono jack socket, and
provides a line-level mix of all the audio signals produced by that Comander's
To Next Page
Loading...