What is the Binary Host Interface

Products: ACR9000, 9030,9040,9600,9630,9640, Aries Controller (AR-xxCE)

The ACR controller can be interfaced to a PC application through the provided COM object. The controller is delivered with a software development kit called ACR-View, which installs the COM object: ComACRserver. The ComACRserver provides methods and functions that allow the user to create custom PC applications in VB, C++, .NET,LabView, etc to command the controller via Ethernet, USB, or serial.  

The ComACRserver is a wrapper for the lower level communication called the Binary Host Interface. Most application will use the ComACRserver but some users prefer to use the native Binary commands directly. Using the Binary Host Interface natively allows users to optimize the performance of applications by eliminating the COMACRservers overhead. It also provides a communication option for non-Windows applications (e.g. Linux) as the ComACRserver uses the MS COMobject model.

Details about the Binary Host Interface can be found in the ACR Programmers Guide within ACR-Views on-line help, or download the PDF version here.

Serial:

When using the Binary Host Interface with serial communication, by sure to read and follow the user discussion about MODE and Control Character Prefixing in the section called Binary Data Transfer.

Ethernet:

Details about Ethernet communications to the ACR controller can be found in the Ethernet Spec which describes the base level TCP and UDP connections and data formats.

Port 5002 is an ASCII connection. With this connection you could send any Acrobasic command to the controller as if you were in the terminal emulator in ACR-View.

Port 5006 is a managed binary connection that expects to see commands in a specifc format. 5006 is well suited for PC applications and constructing drivers.