Introduction to Q-SYS Control (Part 4)

Welcome back!

Let’s take a look now at Q-SYS Ethernet control.

As we discussed earlier, we define incoming control as control coming from a device to control Q-SYS

and then the outgoing control is when the Q-SYS system is controlling an external device.

With outgoing control, if we only need a unidirectional send only control,

we can use the Command Buttons component as a simple method to send TCP, UDP,

or serial commands to a device to provide the control that we want.

Q-SYS also has monitoring components which provide a means of supervising a device simply by sending it a ping

at a particular time interval, or an SNMP query.

Q-SYS also supports bi-directional control with plugins, and if parsing response strings is required for your

control system, then block controller, scriptable controls or text controller components are available.

Please note that for firmware Q-SYS Designer Software version 7 or greater,

you will need a feature license for scripting components and the block controller.

Let’s take a look at an example of using the Ping component in a design to monitor

the network connection status of a device.

You’’ll find the Ping Component in the right side pane under Monitoring Components folder.

If we enter Emulation mode and then enter the Host Name or IP Address of the device we want to monitor,

Q-SYS will continuously send a sequence of pings to this address on the network.

As long as we receive a reply on this address, we know that this device is on the network;

now, no guarantee that the device is fully functional, but at least we know that it’s alive.

Next let’s look at the SNMP Query component.

Go ahead and exit Emulation Mode and then add the SNMP Query component to the schematic.

Then go back to Emulation Mode where we can fill out the hostname or IP address of the device.

Next, let’s add the Community parameter of the SNMP property we want to monitor

which typically is going to be a public or private one.

We will also need to fill in the OID or Object Identifier of the SNMP property.

Beside the OID parameter field, the component displays the last value received from the SNMP query.

To the right of that we have a Comparison Operator drop down list to set how we compare

the received SNMP value to the value we enter here.

So if we set the Comparison Operator to Present, any response value received will set our Status to Okay.

We can also choose “is equal to”, greater than, or less than and so on to better compare

the values received to set our Status properly as okay or as an error.

Now let’s move on to incoming control.

Here we have a bi-directional TCP communication which has two major methodologies…

which include Q-SYS external control protocol or ECP and the Q-SYS remote control protocol or QRC.

Both methods allow for incoming control of Q-SYS, but these two methods are very different.

ECP provides control access via Named Controls that you have setup in Q-SYS Designer software.

While QRC will be very familiar if you have experience with JSON.

With ECP, we establish a TCP connection to the core on port 1702 with a keep-alive function

that is necessary every minute to maintain that connection.

This communication will need a line feed or 0A hex as the end of line character.

In addition to the feedback received from the control commands sent to the core,

to setup any unsolicited feedback,

we will need to set up what we call a "change group" to make that work.

Moving over to QRC, this control method has the benefit of providing control access

to named controls as well as named components.

QRC control is enabled in the Network Services in Core Manger and utilizes port 1710 for TCP communication.

A keep-alive is required here as well, with all the commands ending in a Null or 00 Hex value

as the end of line character.

QRC can also support Change Groups to receive non-solicited component status updates.

Now, let’s look at some integration basics on a 3rd party control system that utilizes our ECP protocol.

Let’s say that you want a Crestron system to have control over a Q-SYS gain control.

Start by adding a gain control in the design schematic, give it a name like “MyGain”,

and then drag the mute and the gain controls into the Named Control pane.

This allows control to be referenced by a third party control system like Crestron.

On the Crestron side, first we will need to establish the TCP connection.

You’ll need to have ready any login Information and the IP address of the Core handy.

For proper feedback operation, we do recommend waiting at least 10 seconds after establishing

a connection to the Core before sending initialization commands such as polling for current status

and setting up Change Groups.

Once we have properly established a control connection,

we can begin controlling our Gain component by including

the Named Component parameters that we previously setup in Q-SYS Designer.

Our control communications will need to adhere to some timing rules for communication.

Remember… you should wait ten seconds after establishing a connection

before initializing communication for polling status and change groups.

You can also use redundant core controls if you need to.

Typically, 3rd party control systems will need specific programming to establish a control connection to the

Core that will also distribute that connection to individual modules

for controlling the different aspect of the design.

Also, for all controls that need auto-polling for continuous feedback,

programming will need to be included to add all of these controls to a Change Group.

On the Q-SYS side, make sure to enable Auto-Poll to allow this functionality.

Alright, we're gonna pause right there.

When we come back we're gonna take a look at third-party control plugins. See ya next time.