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Controlling Sky or Sky+ from your PC - serial protcool
- Baud rate: 57600
- Bits: 8
- Flow control: none
- Stop bits: 1
The controller is a standard RS232 DCE unit, so to connect it to a standard DTE (eg. a PC) you would use a straight-wired 9-way D-type male to female cable. The controller has a female 9-way D-type on it.
The pin out is ground on pin 5, the controller receives data on pin 3 and transmits data on pin 2. (There are no hardware flow control signals.)
| Command | Description
| hex
| 0 | 0x30 | Send command, output zero (that is, the output labelled
'Output 1'.
| 1 | 0x31 | Send command, output one (the output labelled 'Output 2')
| C | 0x43 | Send command, output number in next byte
| B | 0x42 | Set baud rate. Only available in version 0.9.5 and 0.9.8 onwards.
Please contact us if you have another 0.9.6, 0.9.6 or <0.9.5 and
need a different baud rate.
| next byte (ASCII character): '0': 300 '1': 600 '2': 1200 '3': 2400 '4': 4800 '5': 9600 '6': 14400 '7': 19200 '8': 38400 '9': 57600 So for example send the string 'B7' to change the controller to 19200 baud. The controller will reply 'OK' then move to the new baud rate on the next power cycle. The setting will persist in EEPROM until another 'B' command is issued. q | 0x71 | Query firmware version
| p | 0x70 | 'ping' - makes controller respond 'OK'. Only available in
version 0.9.6 onwards.
| s | 0x73 | Setup parameters, output zero part 1
| t | 0x74 | Setup parameters, output zero part 2
| u | 0x75 | Setup parameters, output one part 1
| v | 0x76 | Setup parameters, output one part 2
| | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
'Send commands'
The send commands are each followed by two bytes that indicate the infrared code to be sent, as found in the sky infrared control codes.For example, to send the digit '1' to a sky box on output 0, send the
three bytes:
0x30 0x00 0x01
To send the digit '1' to a sky+ box on output 0, send the
three bytes:
0x30 0x0C 0x01
To send the digit '1' to a sky+ box on output 1, send the
three bytes:
0x31 0x0C 0x01
To send the 'sky' button to a sky+ box on output 1 (which will make sure
it is switched on and go back to the 'live tv' view), send the three bytes:
0x31 0x0C 0x80
For controllers with more than 2 outputs
To send the digit '1' to a sky+ box on the output labelled '1', send the
three bytes:
0x43 0x00 0x0C 0x01
To send the digit '1' to a sky+ box on the output labelled '5', send the
three bytes:
0x43 0x04 0x0C 0x01
(The 'C' control command can also be used on the 2 output units.)
Joseph Heenan, joseph@dusky-control.com