Sharing a TP between 2 conference Rooms
kriskcytek
Posts: 7
I have a customer that has 2 conference rooms with some older amx axcent equipment that they want to upgrade. They also have a control room in the mix. The original install/programming was done by another company so site unseen at this point.
In each conference room there will be a NI-4100 master and a NXT-1700VG in each room. No big deal but they also want to put a third NXT-1700VG in the control room so they can control either conference room.
My questions are:
1. Can this be done? If so how?
2. Would I need a master for the control room TP?
Any help or ideas would be appreciated. Thanks
In each conference room there will be a NI-4100 master and a NXT-1700VG in each room. No big deal but they also want to put a third NXT-1700VG in the control room so they can control either conference room.
My questions are:
1. Can this be done? If so how?
2. Would I need a master for the control room TP?
Any help or ideas would be appreciated. Thanks
0
Comments
When you go into programming, both masters can have the touch panel in their Define_device section. On the master that the touch panel is connected to, it would be something like this:
define_device //if system number 1
dvTP_ControlRoom 10002:1:0 //on master that panel is connected to.
The other master will have it like this:
define_device //if system number 2
dvTP_ControlRoom 10002:1:1 //connecting to the device on the other system number.
Both masters will respond to the same events that come from the touch panel. The touch panel will respond to the same events from both masters. You may want to make one port's pages for one rooms control, and the other rooms port on the touch panel for the other master to control.
Just post up here if you have any more questions. There are tons of answers to master to master communication on here.
Ryan
There are several ways to control the different rooms but the simplest would be to use different TP ports for Conf. A devices than Conf. B devices.
Define the TP D:P:S in both master. If you use ports 1-5 for Conf. A define devices 10001:1-5:1 in the master for Conf. A. Then if you use TP ports 6-11 for Conf. B define those devices in the master for Conf. B 10001:6-11:1. You just defiine system 1 TP device ports in system 2 and create the button event just as if it were in system 1.
No This is all accomplished through the magic of master-to-master communications which allows any device on any master within the system to communicate with, control, receive input from any other device connected to any master in the system. This means that if you have a touch panel connected to each of your two rooms that either of these touch panels can send instructions to either of the masters, receive feedback from either of the masters, etc.
The first thing to do is to set up M2M as already outlined. Each master must be uniquely numbered within the system (master #1 and master #2, for example) and they much be networked together and the IP address of exactly one of the masters needs to be in the URL list of the other. Don't allow a circular reference (though some documentation implies it is permissible: don't do it).
Here's one way to do it:
Now, for the sake of this discussion let's assume that you have the touch panel assigned to master (and room) #1 set up as device 10001 and that you have all the buttons assigned to port 1 on that TP. Set up the other touch panel to be 10002 and to use port 2. The important thing, for my example, is that there be no overlap between the port numbers used on the two panels. Also, on your touchpanel files, allow no page or popup names to be duplicated between the two tps -- apparent later. The two touch panels get set up to communicate with their respective masters by specifying the URL of the appropriate master in the TP set up. You already know how to do this.
so far we have two separate systems System 1:
define_device dvtp1 = 10001:1:0 define_variable constant dev dvTPs[] = {dvtp1}System 2:
define_device dvtp2 = 10002:2:0 define_variable constant dev dvTPs[] = {dvtp2}Nothing remarkable so far.
Now, set up the third touch panel to be 10003 and connect it also to the URL of system 1 (could be either). Load all the tp pages from both of the other TP files onto this TP and provide navigation so that you can select either set of tp pages depending on the room you want to control from the third panel. Modify the programs to incorporate this third TP:
System 1:
define_device dvtp1 = 10001:1:0 dvtp3 = 10003:1:0 //this tp is connected to this master system #0 define_variable constant dev dvTPs[] = {dvtp1, dvtp3}System 2:
define_device dvtp2 = 10002:2:0 dvtp3 = 10003:2:1 // note that this tp is "connected" to the other master--system # 1 define_variable constant dev dvTPs[] = {dvtp2, dvtp3}See what we have? On either master we can now accept button presses from the TP assigned to that master and the matching button presses from the combined room TP just by referencing the device array dvTPs. None of the button presses destined for either of the masters can affect the other master as there are no TP ports in common between the two masters.
This is just a rough example of how it can be done -- think about how all this stuff fits together and you can see different ways to do it. For example, on the TP that you desire to use to control both rooms you can have a page with camera (or projector or whatever) controls for both rooms and use the port numbers of the buttons to determine which room to control -- you don't have to have separate pages is what I'm saying.
One possible hitch is if you want to do page control (or popup control) in your code. You have to be sure that you are switching the pages on the TP that you want. THis is not a hard problem as you can easily track which TP it is that you are getting a press from and flip only on that TP. In any case, you can figure out how to sort out these little problems.
Again, this is just a simple example of how to do what you want to do--there are many other ways to skin this cat. You can get very complicated and sophisticated with your device assignments and tp designs and do all sorts of bizarre and crazy things.
I'm sure that someone will come along shortly and explain why everything I just told you is BS, so just think about it for a while and you'll figure it out.
Very true -- to control two conference rooms you really only need one master.
There seems to be a tendency for the guys with the sharp pencils to want to install a master in every room, but it's really not necessary. We had one installation where separate masters were put into lecterns in a configurable conference room and all these lectern masters actually did was provide ports. Seemed like a waste to me. Didn't even need any code on those masters at all. But I couldn't complain too much as the pencils that these guys were using were not quite sharp enough to figure out that programming these extra masters was not actually necessary. So, unlike many times, I didn't have to fight so hard to get my share. It's much more typical for them to way underestimate the programming budget.