Serial Port Programming

WattmonPRO and WattmonMEGA come with an RS-232 serial interface on pins 7 and 8 and an RS-485 port on an RJ45 connector. The device is configured by default for RS-232 voltage levels and by using a simple DB9 cable can be connected to any serial device. For specific devices that require TTL levels, a jumper setting inside the device can bypass the level converter IC and it can thus be used to interface with sensors or other devices at 3.3V DC.

To open the serial port, use the fseropen() function. The serial port is treated like a file after opening and standard file functions such as fread(), fwrite(), fgets() and filesize() apply.

An example of using the serial port is shown below:

<?
  // Open the serial port at 115200 baud in non-blocking mode
  $fp=fseropen(115200,0);
  if (!$fp) {
    print("Serial open failed");
  } else {
    $res=fwrite($fp,"Hello from wattmon");
    if ($res) {
      print("An error occurred while trying to write to the port");
    }
    fclose($fp);
  }
?>

< Settings for RS-232 Mode < Settings for TTL Mode

In order to connect to a device you will need to procure a DB9 cable (male or female) and connect it up as shown in the following diagram:

In order to use the RS-485 port, you need to disable modbus polling. This is done from the Devices > Options > Edit Communication Settings as shown here:

To open the RS-485 port, use the f485open() function. The RS-485 serial port is treated like a file after opening and standard file functions such as fread(), fwrite(), fgets() and filesize() apply.

An example of using the RS-485 serial port is shown below:

<?
  // Open the 485 port at 115200 baud with no parity
  $fp=f485open(115200,0);
  if (!$fp) {
    print("Serial open failed");
  } else {
    $res=fwrite($fp,"Hello from wattmon");
    if ($res) {
      print("An error occurred while trying to write to the port");
    }
    fclose($fp);
  }
?>

Use a standard RJ-45 cable and cut it to connect your RS-485 device to WattmonPRO or WattmonMEGA.