Technical Information

Connect a 12 volt DC power supply to either the power jack or the 12V screw terminals on the ABN. Use a common mains adapter if your application does not require uninterrupted power. If you connect the ABN to a battery supply such as a vehicle's battery or the backup battery of an alarm system, it is highly recommended that an inline fuse be installed on the positive wire to eliminate the risk of fire or damage in the event of a short circuit.

The ABNs have a feature which is useful for access control applications whereby outputs may be activated simply by making an ordinary voice call to the ABN.

This feature utilises the Caller Line Identification (CLI) feature of GSM to identify the caller and activate an output without actually answering the call. For example, if the ABN is programmed with the following message:

VAM5551111

output 'A' will be activated momentarily upon receiving a voice call from caller '5551111'. Note that only the last portion of the caller's telephone number needs to be entered. This may be useful where, for example, the ABN is used for controlling access to an office parking lot and needs to be programmed to recognise the phone numbers of many callers.

Using only the last several digits of the phone number is recommended because different phones and networks may identify themselves either by sending the full international number (i.e. including the +27 prefix), or else just prefixing the provider code with a '0'. In order to avoid any confusion which may result from this, it is best to use only the last seven or eight digits of the number.

The format of the above voice call command is:

'V' - indicates that this is a voice call command;

'AM' - indicates that output 'A' should be activated momentarily. The format of this portion of the command is identical to the usual SMS output programming commands.

'5551111' - is in this instance the last seven digits of the phone number which is to be recognised.

In the event that it is necessary to delete this entry from the ABN's internal database, the following command:

VX555111

will remove the voice caller entry for the caller whose number ends in '5551111'. Please note that if, as in this instance, the last seven digits of the caller's number were used in creating this entry, the same seven digits should be used in deleting the entry.

Note that it is possible to program more than one voice call command for the same phone number. For example:

VAM5551111

and

VBM5551111

will trigger both outputs A and B on a single phone call from 5551111.

The ABNs have built-in low battery detection circuitry which can be programmed by the user in the same way as the other inputs.

The name of the low battery input is '.' (dot, period). So if the following programming command is sent to the ABN:

.BATTERY LOW+27835550000

the ABN will send the message 'BATTERY LOW' if the supply voltage drops below approximately 10.5 volts.

It may often be useful to disable certain inputs, particularly in security-type applications. For example if alarm sensors have been connected to inputs and those inputs have been programmed to send messages if those sensors have been triggered, it would be useful to be able to disarm the alarm system. This may be done by sending the ABN the following message:

IN

This command will disable all of the inputs until the message:

IY

is sent to the ABN, which will enable all of the inputs again. What this means is that, although the inputs are programmed to send messages, they will not do so while they are disabled. When the 'IY' is sent, they will send messages again if they are triggered.

It is also possible to split enabled/disabled inputs into two 'zones'. If the message:

I1

is sent, this will enable inputs J, K and L and disable inputs M, N and O. P and Q will always remain enabled. Sending the message:

I2

will disable inputs J, K and L and enable M, N and O. P and Q will still always be enabled.

IT

will 'toggle' the inputs. This means that if the inputs are all enabled, 'IT' will disable them all. If the inputs are all disabled, 'IT' will enable them all. 'IT' will similarly flip an enabled zone off and a disabled zone on. Inputs P and Q are not affected by this command, since they always remain enabled.

So, in where the ABN is used as an alarm system, it would be possible to arm the sensors in one area, while leaving them disarmed in another.

Inputs P and Q can be considered to be a "24-hour zone", as they always stay enabled and may be used as panic-button circuits or could also be used for a keyswitch or remote for enabling/disabling inputs or other functions.

If you really want to be able to disable inputs P and Q, the command:

I0

will disable all inputs, including P and Q.

This feature allows a remote user to establish if the inputs and outputs are either on or off, without the need to program the ABN to send immediate SMS messages when an input is activated. This may be used for applications where the inputs and/or outputs need to be monitored on an ad hoc basis.

Simply sending the ABN the following message:

S

will cause the ABN to respond with an SMS message in the form:

aBcdeFgh
jKlmnOpq
ZONES=ALL (JKLMNOPQ)
CNTRY=655
PRVDR=10
CELLID=3AB6
CELLBR=Greenhills
SIGNAL=4/4
TIME=13:45
DATE=15/07/05
VER=3.2

This response indicates that the inputs and outputs represented by a lower-case letter are off, and those indicated by an upper-case letter are on. So, in the above example, outputs A, C, D, E, G and H are off, while outputs B and F are on; inputs J, L, M, N, P and Q are off, while inputs K and O are on.

ZONES=ALL (JKLMNOPQ) indicates which inputs are currently enabled. In this instance all inputs (J-Q) are enabled. The 'I' command, which permits 'zones' of inputs to be enabled/disabled will cause this field to change.

The remaining information gives details of the location of the ABN. CNTRY=655 tells us the country code (655 means South Africa), PRVDR=10 tells us the service provider code (10 is MTN), and CELLID=3AB6 indicates the cell ID of the cell in which the ABN is currently located.

CELLBR=Greenhills is the 'cell broadcast' of the cell in which the ABN is located. This information varies depending on the network provider. For example, in South Africa all networks broadcast the place name, whereas in the United Kingdom the (landline) telephone area code is broadcast.

The ABNs have a very useful facility whereby any operation may be performed at a set time. This is performed by means of the 'W' or 'when' command.

For example, you may have connected output C to your outdoor lights, and you would like to have them turned on automatically at 6pm and then turned off again at 11pm. The 'W' command is followed by 4 digits which indicate the time on a 24-hour clock, and this in turn is followed by any other ABN command.

W1800CY

will cause output C to be turned on at 6pm every day, and

W2300CN

will cause output C to be turned off at 11pm every day.

Another example may be where you may wish to allow a person with the phone number 5559999 to enter an automatic gate by means of a voice call, but only between the hours of 8am and 5pm. Assuming your gate is connected to output D, you could do this by sending the following:

W0800VDM5559999

and

W1700VX5559999

This would have the effect of adding the entry 'VDM5559999' every morning at 8, thus permitting voice caller 5559999 to open the gate from that time onwards, and 'VX5559999' would then delete that entry every afternoon at 5. Therefore our caller would effectively be denied access between the hours of 5pm and 8am.

An even more elaborate example may be where your alarm should alert different persons if it is triggered at different times of the day. Assuming the alarm is connected to input L:

W0800LALARM AT FACTORY+27831112222

W2000LALARM AT FACTORY+27824445555

would cause the holder of phone 27831112222 to receive alarm notifications between 8am and 8pm, while the holder of phone 27824445555 will receive alarm notifications between 8pm and 8am.

Often one may wish to receive a 'heartbeat' message at regular times to ensure that everything is working correctly. This can be done with:

W1900S+27835557777

This will send a 'status' message to 27835557777 at 7pm every day.

Should you wish to remove a 'when' command, the format would be something like this:

WX0830

This will delete ALL 'when' commands that execute at 8.30am. So, if you have several things that happen automatically at 8.30am, they will all be deleted.

Take note that the 'when' command utilises the clock on the cellphone which is connected to the ABN. So make sure that the time on that phone is correctly set!

The 'when' command also has a 'wildcard' facility which works something like this; if any digit of the time is replaced with an asterisk (*), it means 'any' minute or second. So if we were to send a command like:

W**00AY

output A will be turned on every hour, on the hour, and:

W**05AN

output A will be turned off every hour, at 5 minutes past the hour. So output A will be turned on for 5 minutes every hour. Another example:

W06*0BT

will toggle output B on and off every 10 minutes between 6am and 7am. So B will turn on at 6:00am, turn off at 6:10am, turn on at 6:20am, turn off at 6:30am and so on until 7am.

Setting the Momentary Activation Period

The default period for momentary activation of outputs is 1 second. For example, the command 'AM' will cause output A to turn on for 1 second, and then turn off again. If you want to change this to a longer period, the 'Tn' command will allow you to change the activation period ('n') to any value from 1 to 9 seconds. For example:

T5

will set the momentary activation period to 5 seconds for all future momentary commands.

Security Mode

Setting this feature will cause the ABN to accept future command messages only from the callers for whom security modes have been set.

There are two levels of security which may be set for individual callers: high and low. The ABN initially will accept commands from any caller, but as soon as security mode has been set for any single caller, the ABN will refuse commands from any other caller, unless security mode is then set for that caller too.

High level security will permit the caller for whom it has been set to issue any command to the ABN; low level security will only permit a caller to issue output activation commands (A-H) or to request input/output status (S).

High level security is set as per the following example:

XH5551111

The breakdown of this command is as follows:

X - Set security;

H - High level security for this caller;

5551111 - The last several digits of the caller's phone number.

Note that it is not necessary to enter the caller's full phone number, but it is of course recommended that since this is a security-related issue, at least the last 7 or so digits should be used.

It is strongly recommended that at least two caller numbers be entered and tested when setting up the ABN. Otherwise nobody will be able to program the ABN if the only caller's cellphone is lost! Be careful when setting up this feature, otherwise you may lock yourself out!

Low level security may be set as follows:

XL5552222

This will permit the caller whose last seven digits are 5552222 to issue commands to activate outputs and query input/output status only. This caller will not be allowed to program inputs, voice calls, set security levels or clear all settings.

The entry for a secure caller may be deleted by sending the ABN a message similar to the following:

XX5552222

This will delete any security entry for the caller with the number 5552222. Note that, although it is only necessary to enter the last several digits of the caller's number when setting security levels, the same number of digits must be entered when deleting that caller's entry.

Clearing All Settings

By sending the command message:

Z

all settings in the ABN are cleared and returned to factory defaults.

Error Messages

When a command is normally sent to an ABN, it will perform the command and no further response is returned to the sender of the command. However, if the ABN is unable to fathom the meaning of the message sent to it, it will send back an SMS message, usually something like: "AutoBleep: Command not understood."

Where the user wishes to have confirmation that a command message has indeed been received and actioned by the ABN, the following command must first be sent to the ABN:

RY

Thereafter, this will ensure that a response is sent back to the sender of every message sent to the ABN, either confirming that a command has been actioned or else complaining of some error.

If no responses are required from the ABN at all (errors or otherwise), the message:

RN

will ensure that thereafter no error or confirmation messages are sent back to the sender. Where it is desired to set the ABN back to its default behaviour, where only error responses are returned, send it the following command:

RE