Controls

In this section

CAB 8n

Audio

GPIO

Serial

Status

See also

Purpose

Device properties

CAB 8n

Link

Lit (green) when a link is established between NWare and the device across the network.

id

A four digit hexadecimal number between 0000 and FFFF (0000 is off). This number uniquely identifies the CAB on the network. It is specified on the front panel of the CAB hardware using rotary switches. When a valid number is entered, the Link LED will be lit.

Conductor Priority

CobraNet Conductor priority. If you leave this setting at the default value, a CobraNet Conductor will be selected automatically. The device with the highest value will become the Conductor, therefore selecting a higher value makes it more likely that this device will become the Conductor.

Fault

When lit (red) indicates an unexpected condition within the CobraNet interface.

 

Failover Mode

Specifies whether this unit will be part of a redundant set up. When redundancy is used, two CAB 8ns are configured so that if one CAB fails, the other takes over and audio will continue to be transferred across the network.

The CABs are wired together using the Fault connectors on the rears of the units and audio inputs and outputs are wired to both units.

Disabled

This unit will not be used in a redundant set up.

This is the default setting.

Master

This is the primary unit that will be used to transfer audio. It is assumed that a second CAB (physically connected to the first one) has been configured to operate in slave mode.

Slave

This is the backup unit that will not be used to transfer audio unless the primary unit fails.

Force Failover

Forces a switchover from the master unit to the slave unit. The slave unit will become the master and vice versa.

Reset Failover

Actions a switchover from the slave unit back to the master unit.

Persistent configuration

Click to specify that the configuration settings specified on the control surface will be used instead of the default settings when the unit is power cycled.

Standalone mode

Click to specify that the CAB will continue to send and receive audio data even if it can no longer communicate with the NioNode running the project.

Default display (advanced subchannel mapping switched off)

Bundle (TX/RX)

The bundle number that identifies a group of up to eight sub‑channels.

Each bundle can manage between 1 and 8 channels. The range is 0 to 65,535 (0 is off). For multicast bundles, the number must be in the range 1 to 255. For unicast bundles, the number must be in the range 256 to 65,279. Numbers in the range 65280 to 65535 are reserved and cannot be used.

The TX bundle will contain all the audio channels set to input on the device properties of the CAB 8n.

The RX bundle will contain all the audio channels set to output on the device properties of the CAB 8n.

The TX and RX channels will be arranged in numerical order within the bundle.

TX

Lit (green) when data is being transmitted on one or more of the subchannels in the bundle.

RX

Lit (green) when data is being received on one or more of the subchannels in the bundle.

Advanced subchannel mapping display

Transmitters

TX

Lit (green) when data is being transmitted on one or more of the subchannels in the bundle.

Bundle

The bundle number that identifies a group of up to eight sub‑channels.

Each bundle can manage between 1 and 8 channels. The range is 0 to 65,535 (0 is off). For multicast bundles, the number must be in the range 1 to 255. For unicast bundles, the number must be in the range 256 to 65,279. Numbers in the range 65280 to 65535 are reserved and cannot be used.

Sub-Channel Mapping 1-8

Boxes for each sub-channel in the bundle. In these boxes you specify the corresponding hardware channel number you want to transmit.

Tip: Values in the Sub-Channel Mapping boxes may be changed on a dynamic basis. This allows any hardware channel number to be mapped to any bundle sub-channel(s) at any time, greatly expanding signal routing flexibility. However, only users familiar with advanced CobraNet practices should use this feature.

Num Chan

The number of audio channels to be included in the bundle. The Num Chan setting, which has a default of 8, controls how many audio channels are sent in a bundle. The value should be set to the number of contiguous channels that will be used, as defined in the Sub-channel Mapping boxes. If Num Chan is set to a value that is greater than the number of channels used, then the bundle will be larger than necessary and will result in wasted bandwidth and processor time. Unused channels with a value of 0 are represented in the bundle by header data only (and no audio data will be included). If the bundle contains subchannel numbers that are not used, they will be sent as full audio channels and consume 1 Mbit of bandwidth per channel.

Priority

The priority of the group of sub-channels.

Tip: You can use the priority setting to implement a redundancy system for transmitters. Specify the priority for a row and then, on a second device, specify the same settings, but use a lower priority. If the transmission of the first row fails, the lower priority row will be transmitted.

Unicast Mode

Controls how a bundle is transmitted onto to the CobraNet network. There are several modes of operation:

  • Unicast - the bundle is sent directly to only one receiver.
  • Multicast - the bundle is sent to all receivers, even if it is not required by the receiver. This mode will always consume bandwidth at all nodes.
  • Multi-unicast - up to four copies of the same bundle are sent unicast to up to four different receiving nodes.

    Specify Always (the default) to always use unicast, or 1, 2, 3 or 4 to specify the number of receivers for the bundle.

    If there is only one receiver for a transmission, unicast will be used automatically.

    If Unicast Mode is set to 1 or greater, unicast will be used unless the number of receivers on the network for a particular bundle number is greater than the value of Unicast Mode; in this case, bundles will be sent as multi-unicast until the number reaches the value of Max Unicast.

    Note: If you specify a bundle number that is less than 256, multicast will always be used and the Unicast Mode setting will be ignored.

Examples

Unicast Mode is set to Always.

Max Unicast setting is ignored.

There are four receivers set to receive the bundle.

The bundle will always be sent multicast because the number of receivers for the bundle is greater than 0.

Bundle number is greater than 256.

Unicast Mode is set to Always.

Max Unicast setting is ignored.

There is just one receiver set to receive the bundle.

The bundle will be sent unicast because the number of receivers is less than 2 (and the bundle number is greater than 256, so multicast mode is not enforced).

Unicast Mode is set to 2.

Max Unicast is set to 2 or greater.

There are four receivers set to receive the bundle.

The receiver bundle count is 4, which is greater than 2, so the bundle will be sent multicast.

Max Unicast

The number of duplicated bundle transmissions (rows with identical settings and the same bundle number) that will be sent in multi‑unicast mode before true multicast is used.

Receivers

RX

Lit (green) when data is being received on one or more of the subchannels in the bundle.

Bundle

The bundle number that identifies a group of up to eight sub‑channels.

Each bundle can manage between 1 and 8 channels. The range is 0 to 65,535 (0 is off). For multicast bundles, the number must be in the range 1 to 255. For unicast bundles, the number must be in the range 256 to 65,279. Numbers in the range 65280 to 65535 are reserved and cannot be used.

Sub-Channel Mapping 1-8

Boxes for each sub-channel in the bundle. In these boxes you specify the corresponding hardware channel number you want to receive.

Tip: Values in the Sub-Channel Mapping boxes may be changed on a dynamic basis. This allows any hardware channel number to be mapped to any bundle sub-channel(s) at any time, greatly expanding signal routing flexibility. However, only users familiar with advanced CobraNet practices should use this feature.

Priority

The priority of the group of sub-channels.

Tip: You can use the priority setting to implement a redundancy system for transmitters. Specify the priority for a row and then, on a second device, specify the same settings, but use a lower priority. If the transmission of the first row fails, the lower priority row will be transmitted.