QM.NET discovery software

aly

Well-Known Member
Hi all laser & network lovers :rolleyes:

I am currently developing small tool - a piece of software that in realtime shows all QM.NET devices connected to the network. Refresh rate is 1/2 second.
This tool is meant to simplify setting up network on events.
It listens for the UDP traffic and displays available QM devices.
When you start LD / ST / Livepro software qm.nets will disappear from this list.

If someone could find this tool usable, let me know.

Beta version can't yet display serial number and card info correctly.
IP address and number of boards is correct.

Beta version looks like this:
 

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Download

Here is a link to the version 5 (still beta version):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/585046/QMNet_sniffer_v5.exe
This is single executable file - no installation necessary.

QM.NETs are listed as IP addresses. If you want to see also the serial number try the "MAC addr." button - but it crashes on some machines. You have been warned :p

This software is not connected to the Pangolin company in any way. Pangolin SDK is not used. I am the autohor. Do not annoy Pangolin people with questions about this.
Software is provided as-is. And for free. So support is also limited.
 
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Hello aly,

thank's for this update.
This tool is very helpful.

If possible, i would like to learn more about how to check if a board is online or not, because i have written an application in Delphi which uses SDK and works mainly with boards connected over tcp/ip.


Greetings,

Winfried
 
Mine is also in Delphi.
It's all very simple.
When QM boards are idle (no software on PC running) they are constantly transmitting UDP Broadcast messages to the network. Like beacons. You can see the lights blinking :) . With Wireshark or similar capture software you can take a look what raw packets look like.

All I have done is to implement UDP socket, initialize it for reception of broadcast messages and then process the received data. It's listening-only application. It does not transmit anything to the network. That's why it can't know the type and serial number of the boards, only IP addresses where the packets came from.

When you run any kind of Pangolin software QM boards stop broadcasting and this method is no longer usable. Then you would have to switch to Pangolin SDK to check if they are present.
 
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This seems like a useful lil app; have you thought about using the SDK so that you can see more info and have it usable after a Pangolin application is running?
 
have you thought about using the SDK
Not really, my idea is to have something totally independent.
If Pangolin SW drops a connection, SDK (DLL) will also fail to communicate. With this app you can have an alternative tool for searching for a problem in the network.
 
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