Synchronizing time/date, DST for devices with CAREL pCOx controllers?

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Hi all!

I want to share the solution of the above problem that was tested in several years.

 Description of the problem: somehow once I was tired ☹️ of constantly manually adjusting the RTC and twice a year turning on and off DST on cooling devices, using the CAREL pCO-series controllers. The problem was further complicated by the fact, that these cooling devices usually have two RTCs: one main RTC is in the central controller, for example, pCO1 Medium, and the secondary RTC is in the pCOWeb expansion card (there is another third RTC, that is in the pCO Supernode spiral compressor controller with its LCD). Moreover, the LCD pGD on these cooling devices displays exactly RTC from the central controller, and not from the expansion card pCOWeb.

 If the cooling devices with the above mentioned CAREL pCO-series controllers are used in the monitoring system in conjunction with the DCE-server, where only two protocols are used, SNMP and TCP/IP Modbus, then this is really a problem. I.e., for external synchronization of the main RTCs of these cooling devices, there are no tools. And, in part, you can solve only the problem with synchronization of the secondary RTCs located in the pCOWeb expansion card.

 Secondary RTC in the pCOWeb expansion card can be synchronized periodically in two ways:

1. or read the main RTC via registers in the central controller pCO1 Medium, for example (by default);
2. or to install in pCOWeb an additional plugin (available to download on the site of the controller developer) for external synchronization using the NTP-protocol (in this case, the default synchronization from the first item must be disabled).
   

But I was not satisfied with this partial solution, since the main goal was not achieved. Therefore, I wrote a bash-script pCOdate.sh for Linux OS, that periodically runs on a crond-scheduler, for example, every Sunday at 04:05 and synchronizes the main RTCs of the central controllers of all cooling devices with the RTC of my internal NTP-server with Linux OS.

How it works: after running the pCOdate.sh script with the time/date setting parameter, the current time/date of the Linux server (it is synchronized by NTP-protocol) is taken and in separate chunks it is written into special temporary registers of the central controller, for example, pCO1 Medium. And then by a separate command this time/date are used to set command of main RTC. It's all. Then this synchronized time and date are displayed on the pGD LCD and, in addition, the secondary RTC in the pCOWeb expansion card is synchronized by default. The goal is achieved 😀.

Moreover, my script allows to use both the SNMP protocol (by default) and the TCP/IP Modbus protocol (there must be a binary modpoll file on the Linux server). In addition, my script allows not only to set time/date on pCO-controllers, but also to read it for verification:

bashpCOdate.sh -h# ./pCOdate.sh -h SYNOPSYS pCOdate.sh [-h] [-g] [-M] [-r read_community] [-w write_community] -n node|filelist_nodes DESCRIPTION Set to the current time on the server or get system time of the CAREL Industries pCOx series products using pCOWeb. pCOWeb acts as "gateway", that is, a translator between the "CAREL supervisor" data protocol and the Ethernet network protocols commonly used to connect the computers in a building. Possible to use MODBus over TCP/IP instead default SNMP (for pCOWeb firmware version after A.1.4.2). Will be slower. OPTIONS -h Show this help. -g Only get system time from pCOx controllers. -M Use MODBus over TCP/IP instead default SNMP (for pCOWeb firmware version after A.1.4.2). Will be slower. -r read_community Set the readonly community string for SNMPv1/v2c transactions. The default is "public" if omitted. -w write_community Set the readwrite community string for SNMPv1/v2c transactions. The default is "carel" if omitted. -n node|filelist_nodes IP address or FQDN name of the pCOWeb connected to the pCOx controller. Or ASCII file with list of IP address or FQDN names of the pCOWeb connected to the pCOx controllers. Format of this file: one string - one IP address or FQDN name.

Additionally, it is possible to process both a single cooling device and a whole list of cooling devices in the form of a simple ASCII-file:

Air_Conditioner.lst192.168.0.81 192.168.0.82 192.168.0.83 192.168.0.84 192.168.0.85 192.168.0.86

I have been successfully using this script for a long time, for example, to synchronize time on a large number of cooling devices such as HiRef NADR/NAUR and the like, which are equipped with the CAREL pCO1 Medium central controller with the pCOWeb expansion card and a separate scroll compressor controller pCO Supernode.

I will be glad to answer the questions.

(CID:116919509)

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