Specifications

5.13. Expansion

The GSM Commander supports comprehensive expansion by means of the GSM

Commander Expansion unit, which provides an additional 5 inputs and 5 outputs similar to the

ones found on the GSM Commander itself.

A total of 6 Expansion units may be daisy chained to provide a maximum of 30 outputs and

30 inputs* in addition to those on the GSM Commander itself.

12V input on Expansion

Each Expansion unit has a 12V input, so that it could also be powered by a separate power

supply. Applying power to this input is optional. The expansion unit can draw power via the

interface ribbon cable, but under certain conditions it is better to supply a separate 12V source

to the expansion unit.

These conditions are:

➢ When the ribbon cable run becomes very long (>5m)

➢ If you are going to connect more than one expansion unit

➢ If you expect to draw power from the input on the Expansion unit

➢ If you expect all inputs and outputs on the expansion to likely be active at once

The Expansion unit will automatically detect if power is applied at its 12V power port. If power

is detected, it will stop drawing power via the ribbon cable, and will draw all its power directly

from the 12V input.

Interface Ribbon cable

Supplied with each Expansion unit is a short (10cm) ribbon cable for interface purposes, but

this ribbon can also be very long. We have tested up to 10m, but we generally recommend a

maximum cable run of 7-8m. Please contact us if you need a longer ribbon cable.

The ribbon cable connectors are mounted such that pin 1 on the one end connects to pin 10

on the other, Pin 2 connects to pin 9 etc.

It is important to connect the Expansion port on the GSM Commander to the IN connection on

the expansion unit. An additional expansion unit must be connected with its IN connection to

the OUT connection of the “upstream” Expansion unit.

* Model Dependent (See Feature Matrix in Section 2)