Unit ID/baud rate tutorial

Most Alicat devices have serial-based communications capabilities. It’s important to make sure the baud rate of the computer or PLC the Alicat is connected to matches that selected on the Alicat. Also, each Alicat connected to a single COM port (or virtual COM port) will need to have a unique Unit ID to allow the computer or PLC to distinguish them from each other.

See below for instructions on how to change the Unit ID and Baud Rate on your Alicat device.

 

Video tutorial

Video transcript

“Hello my name is Michael Whiteside. I’m an applications engineer here at Alicat Scientific.  In this video, I’m going to show you how to change your unit ID and baud rate on your Alicat device for communication purposes.  Now let’s get started!”

In order to change the Unit ID and baud rate on your Alicat device, we will hit “MENU” (bottom right button), “ADV SETUP” (bottom middle button), “COMM SETUP” (top middle button), and we see that it is set up for RS232 Serial with a Unit ID of A and a baud rate of 19200.

We can change the Unit ID simply by pressing the Unit ID button (top left), and using the up or down buttons to change the ID.  Let’s say we want to change this to E.  Hit set, and go back into that menu, and we can change the baud rate to a wide variety.  We will change it to 9600 here.

That is how you properly change the Unit ID and baud rate on an Alicat Device

Step-by-step instructions (front panel)

Unit ID

  1. Press the bottom right, “MENU”, button to open the menu.
  2. Press the bottom middle, “ADV SETUP”, button to open the Advanced Setup Menu.
  3. Press the top middle button for “COMM SETUP” selection.
  4. Press the top left button for “UNIT ID” selection.
  5. Use the up and down buttons to set your desired Unit ID.
  6. Press the bottom right button for “SET” selection.

Baud rate

  1. Press the bottom right button for “MENU” selection.
  2. Press the bottom middle button for “ADV SETUP” selection.
  3. Press the top middle button for “COMM SETUP” selection.
  4. Press the top right button for “BAUD” selection.
  5. Use the up and down buttons to set your desired baud rate.
  6. Press the bottom right button for “SET” selection.

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