Acterna will soon be releasing an upgrade to the CMX-A Transponder firmware. The new v4.19 firmware release includes new features designed to meet specific customer requests, and includes fixes for several transponder problems encountered in the field.
The new firmware v4.19 includes a new DICMD function that provides a method of clearing active alarms without resetting a transponder. In addition, a hysteresis setting enhancement for alarm clears has been added that can help lead to a major reduction in nuisance alarms. The new firmware also fixes unit alarms that may now be appearing out of synch, and addresses the RF modem transmitter drift issue. More details are provided below.
Current customers using PCODE v4.18 and RCODE v4.17 can replace those older versions with new PCODE and RCODE v4.19 firmware. However, RCODE changes made are intended for use by Acterna Manufacturing and do not represent any modifications to field operation.
Firmware v4.19 New Features - PCODE
Updated DICMD operation:
The DI command has been modified to provide a method of clearing active alarms without issuing a reset command to the transponder. A second request type has been defined that will tell the transponder to reset its current alarm states before sending back the command reply. This will allow the polling master the ability to synchronize alarm states that may become unknown or discontinuous. More details about the Command Function will be available in a separate Product Bulletin for v4.19 to be distributed in the coming weeks.
Hysteresis setting for alarm clears:
The SEG2WAY "1000" command has been modified to provide a second request type that allows configuration of the alarm clear hysteresis. This feature provides the ability to extend the alarm clear to a value which will "filter" input signals that are generating a large number of alarm and clear events. This number of seconds for the clear hysteresis will be equal to the current alarm hysteresis setting multiplied by a 16-bit multiplier stored in EERPOM. The maximum length of time that can be set is 10 days, however, we advise a time significantly shorter than this!
This feature is accessed using existing HEC software and the HTML diagnostics pages. The alarm clear hysteresis is manually configured using the EEPROM write command, "5753", and the reset command, "4448". The multiplier is stored as 16-bit data and is located at EEPROM addresses, 0CC0 and 0CC1, where address 0CC0 contains the high byte of the 16-bit word. If it is desired to configure a number of units with updated clear hysteresis values, the HTML macro utility can be used for the this operation.
Examples of this can be found in the upcoming Product Bulletin for v4.19 firmware (mentioned above).
Bug Fixes
Unit Alarms Appearing Out of Synch
Alarms and clears arrive in the Notifier database with the timestamp in the same second. When this condition is present the clear is often shown to have arrived before the alarm. When the user performs alarm analysis, this causes confusion as to which clear goes with which alarm; this is interpreted as a missing clear.
The above condition was verified to exist in the transponder by analysis of the data transferred from the transponder to an HEC. This condition was tested using fast and slow polling methods. It was found that in order for this apparent failure to occur, the polling cycle time was significantly high and an alarm channel was oscillating in and out of alarm. To address this issue the following changes were implemented:
- The new firmware does not allow the internal transponder alarm condition to become out of synch with the alarm condition reported to the HEC. If the alarm queue becomes full, the transponder will not update any channel alarm states until there is space in the alarm queue to store the updated alarm state. (Note: in general, the queue should not fill. The queue filling is generally a sign of an oscillating alarm).
- The timestamp for each alarm will be reported as the actual alarm timestamp, not the current time on the transponder.
RF modem transmitter drift
This firmware provides a continuous verification of the RF transmitter frequency lock. If it is found that the transmitter is not locked, the modem will be immediately re-tuned to the current frequency before transmitting a response.
Customer should be watching for an upcoming Technical Bulletin on firmware v41.9. This bulletin will include more detailed information about the firmware, recommended actions and work-arounds, plus installation instructions.
