PR 5210 Operating Manual  SMA Protocol 
Sartorius  33 
5 SMA PROTOCOL 
5.1 General 
The Scale Manufacturers Association (SMA) protocol provides an simple access to the scale. Data could 
be read and functions could be executed.  
 
The RS485 interface is used. The setting of the interface is fixed to 8 bit, no parity and 1 stop bit. 
 
The scale commands are printable ASCII characters and start with a <LF> (0A hex) and end with a 
<CR> (0D hex). 
On each received command the transmitter sends after about 100ms an answer. 
 
 
5.2  Key to Symbols Used 
All characters used in this standard are printable ASCII except <CR> <LF> <SPACE> and <ESC>. 
< >  Greater then and less then symbols are used to bracket communication fields and identify 
non-printable ASCII characters. They are never a part of any actual communication 
message. 
<LF>  Line Feed character used for start of data frame (0A hex). 
<CR>  Carriage Return character used for end of data frame (0D hex). 
‘_’ <space>  The underscore or <space> are used to denote an ASCII space character (20 Hex). 
<ESC>  Escape character used as an abort command (1B hex). 
‘!’  ASCII exclamation mark character is used for a data communication error. (21 hex). 
‘:’  ASCII colon used as a field delimiter (3A hex) 
‘-’  ASCII center dash character (2D hex) 
‘?’  ASCII question mark character is used for unrecognized or unsupported commands (3F 
hex). 
‘c’  Command characters all printable ASCII characters. 
<s><r><n>  Scale status indicators; ASCII letter characters or space 
<m><f>  See chapter '5.4.1 Standard Scale Response Message' for exact status details. 
<r><e>  Scale diagnostic indicators; ASCII uppercase characters or space 
<c><m>  See chapter '5.4.4 Diagnostics Command Response' for exact status details 
<xxxxxx.xxx> Weight data including minus sign (right justified when needed) and decimal point (if 
needed). Leading spaces are used with a leading zero to the left of the decimal point if 
needed. This field is always fixed at 10 characters in length. During some error condition 
this field is filled with ‘-’ dashes. 
 Examples:  
  <_ _ _ _ _0.000>; <_ _ _ _11.120>; <_ _ _ _ -1.000>; <- - - - - - - - - -> 
<yyyyyy>  Text field of printable ASCII characters used to convey scale information. This field will 
not exceed a maximum of 25 characters. 
<uuu>  Unit-of-Measure abbreviation. This field is always 3 characters long with a trailing 
space(s) when appropriate.