SCAN Contact Closure Inputs
Contact Closure Features
Our Contact Closure Boards are equipped with firmware built into the board that will allow you to read inputs or trigger relays. Monitor inputs by sending a couple of bytes of data to a Scan Series Controller and the controller will send back a value indicating the current status.
- Monitor Contact Closure Outputs
- Monitor up to 256 total Contact Closures
- Available on the 8, 16, 24 and 32 channel models
Computer Interfaces Available:- USB
- RS232
- Bluetooth Wireless
- 802.15.4 Wireless
- Long Range S3B Wireless
- ZB ZigBee Mesh Networking
Our Contact Closures
Our Scan Series is ideal for reading motion detectors, glass breakage detectors, window/door open detectors, light switches, and other kinds of devices with a contact closure output. Contact Closure Input is a vital part of just about any control system. Our Scan Series Boards allow you to read 16, 32, or 48 switches per Board and can be expanded using our ScanSwitch Series UXP Expansion Boards (see below). Multiple ScanSwitch expansion modules are easily chained together to read up to 256 Contact Closure Inputs per board.
Why Choose NCD?
With NCD you know you have a proven reliable, easy to use, and extensible product. This means you don’t have to spend valuable time researching how to jig-saw pieces of your project together to get them to work cohesively. Being manufactured in the U.S.A. you know you’ll get good support and a quality product. NCD also ensures you won’t have to put any time into soldering or building a PCB, just pick your boards and power them up. Just knowing that every sensor, relay controller, and component is built around the same concept will save you guess work on how well software will work with any board.
How It Works
When you add a SCAN series Contact Closure Input to your cart you will be given the option of a communication interface. The choice is up to you and it won’t effect the code you write overly much. Even going from Serial to Ethernet is relatively simple as you send the same commands, but over a TCP Socket.
Once you have the device connected and communicating you will send simple Commands
Communication Options
Selecting a Communication Technology
The Communication Technology you choose will dictate how you will control and monitor the board. If you want to monitor over a LAN or WAN you can choose WiFi or Ethernet. Need wireless control? Choose S3B, Bluetooth, 802.15.4, or ZigBee Mesh. Want Reliable Wired communication? Choose USB, Serial, or RS-485.
The choice is yours and can change to suit your application.
WiFi Contact Closure Inputs
Much of our development work was done with embedded Wi-Fi. Put simply, we adore this technology and we think you will too. Configuration requires careful attention to our instructions, but once configured…wow. It’s simply amazing and holds so much promise for future development work.
We are working to make configuration easier, but for now, plan on reading our manual found on the product pages BEFORE purchasing. Configuration requires a WiFi Configuration Kit.
S3B Long Range Wireless
Digi XBee-PRO 900HP embedded modules provide best-in-class range wireless connectivity to devices. They take advantage of the DigiMesh® networking protocol, featuring dense network operation and support for sleeping routers, and are also available in a proprietary point-to-multipoint configuration. Supporting RF line-of-sight ranges up to 28 miles (with high-gain antennas), and data rates of up to 200 Kbps, these modules are ideal for extended-range applications requiring increased data throughput.
Digi XBee® modules are easy to use, share a common hardware footprint and are available in a variety of different protocols, enabling users to substitute one Digi XBee for another with minimal development time and risk.
Bluetooth Contact Closure Inputs
We offer Bluetooth communications because of its popularity with mobile devices. If you want to control relays with your smartphone (and you are savvy at writing such an application), then Bluetooth is the ideal choice. iPhone, iPad, and iPod developers should be warned, Apple iOS devices encrypt the Bluetooth protocol deliberately, so our Bluetooth interface is compatible with every computer ever made, including Android, PCs (and every version of Windows that supports Bluetooth), and Linux (and all variants thereof that support Bluetooth), but it will NEVER work with Apple iOS devices.
802.15.4 Contact Closure Inputs
This is one of our favorite wireless technologies. It is easy to setup, use and is very reliable. You need a 802.15.4 modem that plugs into your USB port to talk any number of 802.15.4 Wireless Contact Closure Inputs with up to 1 mile range! You can purchase a modem with the device you choose.
ZigBee Contact Closure Inputs
ZigBee Mesh networking is pretty slow, but extremely powerful and very reliable when you follow all the rules. We highly recommend you purchase a ZigBee Development Kit from www.digi.com before attempting to use this communication technology…this one is for the advanced user. But it has the distinction of offering a low-cost Mesh networking protocol…which means wireless data hops around the wireless network until it reaches the destination device…very cool! Very powerful, very long range, but NOT for the timid.
Serial Contact Closure Inputs
Serial communications may seem like old hat, but they’re also one of the most reliable and proven communication protocols available and are in fact the basis of most of the other communication options here.
You can choose between a Serial DB9 Connector or a 3 wire terminal connector for simple wire hookups. DB9 is the standard serial connector while the 3 wire terminal is usually more advanced and for existing ECM’s and serial splicing applications.
USB Contact Closure Inputs
When it comes to ease of use, USB can’t be beat. With the reliability of Wired Communications and the pure simplicity of USB Technologies this is one of our most popular interface technologies.
To use USB simply plug it in to your computer/ECM, the driver should automatically be installed or already be installed, and open a COM/Serial Port to it. We use an industry standard FTDI chip for added reliability and compatibility across all Operating Systems.
RS-485 Contact Closure Inputs
RS-485 Serial Communications makes it easy to network up to 256 NCD devices together at distances up to 4,000 feet. Each RS-485 node includes 3 screw-terminals for a 3-wire connection to the RS-485 master. Since RS-485 is a physical layer networking protocol, users will make use of the NCD E3C command set to select which device they are speaking to at the software layer. Using the E3C protocol, communicate to each device individually or all devices simultaneously.
Ethernet Contact Closure Inputs
Ethernet communications combine the reliability of a wired connection with the power of network communications. Control your devices reliably from anywhere in the world by implementing a simple socket directly to the device.