Bloc 8 power module (010020008) — Overview

This firmware is what makes a BLOC 8 v2 switch the boat's circuits.

Eight power outputs, each one a circuit: a light, a pump, a fridge, a winch. Each output is switched by three things that all reach the same place, and any of them can be the only one used:

• the front panel — eight touch pads on the e-paper face of the box, under the name of the circuit they switch;
• the boat — a command sent from a MUXEN screen or from the Brain to that output;
• a rule of its own — a logical expression, written once at commissioning, over signals published by the rest of the boat. A bilge pump that follows its float switch needs neither a screen nor a finger.

Around the outputs the module also reads its own inputs — six dry contacts, three analog inputs, the battery voltage, and the current in each output — and publishes all of it on the MUXEN bus, so a circuit that draws nothing, or draws too much, is visible from the boat's screens.

The front

The face of the box is an e-paper display with eight touch pads. It shows, per output, the name of the circuit and whether it is on, off or in fault, and it keeps showing it with the bus down and with the boat asleep — e-paper holds its image without power. Behind the status page sit five more pages: trip settings, faults, the digital inputs, the analog inputs, and the module's own identity.

The names on the display are pushed to the module at commissioning, as small images, and stored in the panel. See Commissioning.

Before it is configured

A module out of its box has no address yet, and it treats that as a fault rather than as a starting point:

• every output is held off, and stays off whatever the pads, the equations or the bus ask;
• nothing periodic goes out on the MUXEN bus — an unaddressed module would publish under the parking address, which every other unaddressed module would be using too;
• the front panel says so: every output cell shows the fault symbol and the header reads #64 instead of the module's number.

Giving it an instance number and letting it restart is what puts the outputs in service. That is the first step of Commissioning.

What it publishes

Everything under function code 1, at the instance number the module was given — on the Brain, device/1/<instance>/….

Frame	Topic	Every	Carries
Life	life	500 ms	the state of the eight outputs, the four virtual signals, the total current
I/O	io	on change, and at most every GenIoMaxSendingPeriod	the six digital inputs and the three analog inputs
Voltage	voltage	1 s	the battery voltage measured at the module
Level	level	on change, at most every 500 ms	the actual level of each of the eight outputs, 0…100 %
Current	current1, current2	500 ms, only when asked for	the current in each of the eight outputs

What it accepts

Command	Effect
output command, channel 0…7	switch that output on or off, and set its dimming level
output command, channel 8	start or stop the periodic current frames
configuration read / write	every parameter of Reference — Bloc 8 power module
display image upload	one label image for one zone of the front panel
locate	flashes the eight cells of the front panel three times

Identity

Product	Bloc 8 — Standard 2.0 (8H)
Product ID	010020008
Hardware ID	990010072
Software ID	990050032
Software version	6.0
Image	010020008.srec

Limits

Power outputs	8
Virtual signals	4
Digital inputs	6
Analog inputs	3
Instance numbers	0…62
Display zones	20
Equation length	255 characters per output

Read next

• What you need — what to wire, and where
• Commissioning — commissioning, step by step
• Common mistakes — Bloc 8 power module — what usually goes wrong
• Reference — Bloc 8 power module — parameters, frames, timings
• BLOC 8 v2 — what is true of the BLOC 8 v2 whatever it runs