Remote Display Setup
A remote display is a display that mirrors the scale weight. It is usually placed on the outside of the truck for viewing from a loader. Fusion can work with any type of remote display as long as it presents itself as a serial device. If your computer doesn't have a serial port, it is possible to find serial to USB converters and serial to Bluetooth converters.
If you use such a converter, there will be some software or drivers that need to be installed and configured so that the remote display ends up looking like a serial device. Please note that every remote display and every converter work differently and we are not able to help with the configuration of this equipment. If you are having trouble with this aspect, please refer the documentation that came with the remote display and/or the converter or call the manufacturer for additional help.
However, once the device is properly installed and configured as a serial port, getting Fusion to work with it should be fairly easy.
Setup Fields
- Port. Choose the port the indicator is connected to. If you make changes to ports in the operating system while this window is open, click the Refresh Port List button. Fusion will ask the operating system for available ports and any new ones can be chosen from the list.
- Baud Rate - Encoding. All of these settings need to match what the remote display device is expecting. You will need to see the device manual or contact the manufacturer if you are not sure what these settings should be. If you and the manufacturer are unsure what the Encoding field should be, leave it set to ISO-8859-1.
- Prepend String. When Fusion sends a weight to the remote display it always sends the actual numbers for the weight. For example, if the current weight was 800 lbs, Fusion would send 800 to the display. Some displays require some characters to come before the number so it knows a number is being sent. If that is the case, enter those characters here.
- Termination String. Similarly, the remote display will require some characters after the number so it knows the end of the number has been reached. All remote displays will require this.
- ASCII. If the prepend string or termination string characters can be entered directly, you can turn the appropriate ASCII checkbox off. However, usually these strings include characters that cannot be entered directly. In that case leave this option on and enter the ASCII equivalent for each character. If there is more than one character, separate each character by a comma (ex. 13,10).
- Pad number to. If the remote display always requires a certain number of digits to be sent, enter that number here. For example, if you entered 6 in this field and the weight was 800, Fusion would send three spaces before the 800 ( 800).
If you are having trouble figuring out what the Prepend String and Termination String fields should be we refer you to the Resource Guide which goes into more depth.
If the Scale Indicator window is currently open and connected to the scale system, you can click the Apply button in the Remote Display Setup window each time you make a change. Fusion will immediately try to connect with the new settings. This way you can play with the settings until you get them right faster. Click the OK button when you are done to save these settings.
Getting Here
You can open this window by clicking the appropriate Setup… button in the Physical Computer Management window.
Related Topics
