Controlling the Velleman K8056 relay card?

[Richard Naninck]

Goto the Settings Menu and select the third option: Property Manager
Press the lower left Add button. A window pops: Type a name: "Velleman Control"
Type a Description: "Velleman Control". Leave the Type to be Alpha-Numeric and press OK. Now press the lower right Add button. Type a Name: "Set all relays" and press OK, repeat this step to create another label for "Clear all relays" and press OK again. Now press the lower middle Close button. You have just created your own property with two labels in it. Other options are to use only one wildcard label "*" (see help for that (more advanced)) OR use one of the existing properties (user definable) and add same labels in there.

Now goto settings again and select Configure Generic Serial port Devices.
Goto menu Device and select New Device Definition. A window pops and select GenericSerialDevices.ddf
Select that new device and give it a name like "Velleman Serial". Goto the Device menu again and select Add Property to Device. This opens the property manager you just used to create your Velleman Control property. Add that property to the device. Goto the File menu and Close. Save settings and restart HouseBot.
Now if you have some labels in your hardware device and some serial commands in your Write Data field that go along with it, the last thing to do here is to bind the two.
Right click the Devices folder on the left of your server screen and select "Requires hardware interface (Hardware Device) and press next. Now select the Velleman Serial device you just created and press next. Choose your device definition and give it a name like "Velleman". Press next and just skip the views for now. Press Finish. You just created your Velleman serial device. Go to it in the left folder window and press the small + icon. This opens up the attached properties. You should see Log, Velleman Control and Received Data. Now click the Velleman Control property. This changes your right hand side of the server window. Select the fourth tab "Commands". Press on Set all relays in the upper window and then press the command that should go with it in the lower window and then press Assign Command. You just assigned your soft stuff to your hard stuff. Do the same for the other property. Then select the Velleman Serial again in the left folder window. The right hand side changes again and you can now select the property values you assigned to Velleman Control. Select Set all relays and all relays should click etc etc.
Be sure the hardware device has the right defintion set.
Now I know why I really would have liked you to understand the help file. Anyways, I hope this should do it for you.
Good luck...

[wetwired]

It works! Thank you. All that info you gave must have been buried somewhere in the help files but you cleared the path. Thanks for your time, Richard, I appreciate it.