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TPD4 and IR Ports on Panel Conversion
Reese Jacobs
Posts: 347
I ran into an interesting problem with TPD4 while working with Sonance iPort touchpanel file. The demo file was created for a MVP-8400 panel and all buttons use port 1. The touchpanel file did however allocate ports 10 and 11 for IR even though they were not used. In my online tree and in diagnostics, I would notice that the touchpanel always had ports 1-11 noted as online and I did not think anything about it at first. I then used TPD4 to convert the file for use with a TPI4 (which does not support IR). Again, when the panel came online, it was noted as having 11 ports online.
At this point, I tracked back to the original file and found the IR ports in the project properties section and deleted them. I re-converted the file and verified that only port 1 was online for the TPI4. It seems that when TPD4 is converting a panel that supports IR and has IR ports defined for it, the definitions are maintained in the file conversion even if the target does not support IR ports. Further, since panels that do not support IR ports do not have the project properties tab to change the IR ports, there is no way to eliminate them from the converted panel file except to re-convert the panel deleting the IR ports first.
At this point, I tracked back to the original file and found the IR ports in the project properties section and deleted them. I re-converted the file and verified that only port 1 was online for the TPI4. It seems that when TPD4 is converting a panel that supports IR and has IR ports defined for it, the definitions are maintained in the file conversion even if the target does not support IR ports. Further, since panels that do not support IR ports do not have the project properties tab to change the IR ports, there is no way to eliminate them from the converted panel file except to re-convert the panel deleting the IR ports first.
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If you have a panel with several ports defined, you'll always get the full range online from 1 to highest port instead of particular ports. This is by design.
So if the panel file anywhere has a channelport of port 13, you'll get ports 1..13 online. Because of this, it's not that useful to have leaks in the port assignment (e.g. 1..3..5..7), because the firmware can only create a ongoing list (1..7).
In special case of a MVP, you define ports for the both IR ports. If you push a button on port 11, channel 4, because of the setup in TPDesign4 the firmware of the MVP detects that this port is assigned to a IR file, and so it will fire port 11, channel 4 onboard. For a TPI4, which doesn't have that IR assignment in firmware, it is just a plain button.
Marc,
Perhaps I was not clear -- there were no buttons defined in the touchpanel file that used the IR ports. The IR ports were simply defined in the Project Properties portion of the file. While this makes sense that the ports came online with an MVP which has IR capabilities, when the file was converted to a TPI4 panel file, the IR ports were still embedded in the file even though the ports were not used on any buttons. Eliminating the IR port definition from the original file and re-converting the panel for the TPI4 eliminated the ports. While it is not a big deal, I was simply pointing out that a panel file that has IR ports defined in it (without using any buttons) maintains those ports in the file when converted to a type that does not support IR.
Reese
A port >1 on a MVP panel can be assigned as an IR output and can also be used as a 'radio' channel in non-IR mode.
What you are saying is the TPD4 application should 'know' what ports are IR and ignore them during a file conversion.
This is an interesting obsevation. Perhaps you should forward this feature request to AMX tech support.