Thursday, 11 October 2007

USB Relay Units need no PSU


The UDIN range are a low-cost range of USB relay, digital I/O units for desk-top, panel or industrial DIN rail mounting. They feature mains rated relays capable of switching mains 3A and fully opto-isolated digital inputs. They do not require any external PSU. All units come with both Virtual Com port drivers so that they can be used with most legacy software packages or with a .DLL for direct programming. Supplied with cable, test programs and programming examples.

The UDIN range consists of a USB interface, a micro-controller and relay outputs and/or opto-isolator inputs. The UDIN units are controlled by simple ASCII commands. The USB interface handles the USB protocols and present the ASCII commands to the micro-controller as serial data. The micro-controller then uses the commands to control the relays or report back input status.

There are 4 models in the range. The UDIN-8R has 8 relays, the UDIN-8I has 8 opto-isolated inputs and the UDIN-44 has 4 relays and 4 opto-isolated inputs. There is also the UDIN-16A which has 4 mains rated 16A relays and 4 opto-isolated inputs.

Most software packages that can send or receive ASCII data to a RS232 port should be able to control the UDIN range. The UDIN units comes with a Virtual Com Port driver, which installs a "Virtual" Com port on the PC. Software can then send and receive ASCII data to and from this Virtual Com port and thus to the UDIN unit. Typical packages that can be used include Windows HyperTerminal (and most other terminal emulator packages), data acquisition packages such as Profilab, DAQFactory, LabVIEW, DasyLab, VEE, TestPoint etc. and also most SCADA Software packages.

Programmers can bypass the VCP route, and use direct .DLL function calls instead. The UDIN units are supplied with a test application complete with all source code. Drivers are available for the Windows operating system, Linux, MAC and Win CE.NET

The UDIN range can be desktop, panel or DIN rail mount. The units will clip on to standard 35mm DIN rail. The DIN rail mounting clips may be extended to reveal 4mm screw holes for fixing to a panel or wall

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