VICON: Power Controller

Warning

This repository is in an early release state and is subject to breaking changes, faulty behavior, and/or incomplete functionality. Please use extra caution while in this state. There is no guarantee that the functionality currently provided will remain compatible/available in future revisions. With that said, feedback/suggestions/bug reports are very much welcome and should be issued via a GitHub issue. It is highly recommended to review the issues page prior to use to understand any known issues with the tool so you may assess the risk of using this while in this early release state.

Description

vicon : (vī'con) Short for V-I-Console and a play on the pronunciation of viking.

A CLI/TUI for controlling the AlienTek DP100 (ATK-DP100) over USB.

Checklist / Features

Below is a basic overview of vicon functionality:

• CLI supported
  • Serial processing of commands, allowing for complex control sequences.
  • Normal-style and JSON-style output to provide option for human readability and tool integration.
• Text-UI (TUI) supported
  • A streamlined text-based user interface providing control with minimal and intuitive keystrokes.
• Waveform Generator (AWG)
  • A basic JSON file format is used to describe setpoint sequences for generating arbitrary waveforms (low speed).
• Suppressed ATK-DP100DLL debug output
• Wireshark USB dissector
• PowerShell tab-completions
• JSON output
  • Providing a convenient way to integrate with other tooling.
• Serial command line processing
  • For most options/commands, the order in which they are specified in the command argument list determine the execution order. This aids in simple scripting for automated workloads.
• Multi-device supported
  • Mechanisms such as --enumerate and --serial improve user experience when working with multiple DP100s.
• Supports a TUI lock function to prevent accidental button presses
• Supports basic TUI theme option for user to select from one of the pre-defined color themes.
• Recorder/trace (support for logging all activity during interactive mode)

Software Requirements

• Requires .NET Framework (v4.8.1)
  • winget install Microsoft.DotNet.Framework.DeveloperPack_4
    • NOTE: A system reboot is recommended after install.
  • A future version will hopefully switch to .NET Core to make this tool cross-platform.
• Visual Studio 2022 / MSBuild / NuGet
  • Visual Studio .NET desktop environment workload.
  • Dedicated nuget install: winget install Microsoft.NuGet.

Initial Setup

Checkout and configure the repository via:

git clone https://github.com/jjcarrier/vicon.git
cd vicon
nuget restore

Build the project via:

dotnet build

Add the build directory to your PowerShell $PROFILE to make the command available from any directory.

Run the follow command for help documentation:

vicon --help

CLI Examples

Read Output Configs

This example shows how to read out the various configurable parameters of the device.

vicon --read-sys --read-out --read-pre 0 10 --json

{"Command":"ReadSystem","Response":{"SystemParams":{"OPP":30,"OTP":60,"RPP":true,"AutoOn":false,"Backlight":1,"Volume":2}}}
{"Command":"ReadOutput","Response":{"Output":{"On":false,"Preset":0,"Setpoint":{"Voltage":3300,"Current":300,"OVP":8125,"OCP":250}}}}
{"Command":"ReadPreset","Response":{"Index":0,"Preset":{"Voltage":3300,"Current":300,"OVP":8125,"OCP":250}}}
{"Command":"ReadPreset","Response":{"Index":1,"Preset":{"Voltage":3300,"Current":200,"OVP":3500,"OCP":500}}}
...
{"Command":"ReadPreset","Response":{"Index":9,"Preset":{"Voltage":10000,"Current":5000,"OVP":30500,"OCP":5050}}}

Basic Control

This example sets the output to 3.3V and a max current of 500mA. Afterwards, delay for 500ms and then turn the output on, delay for 5 seconds and finally turn the output off. All commands and responses are output in JSON format.

vicon --mv 3300 --ma 500 --delay 500 --on --delay 5000 --off --json

{"Command":"WriteVoltage","Response":{"Voltage":3300,"Current":500,"OVP":8125,"OCP":250}}
{"Command":"WriteCurrent","Response":{"Voltage":3300,"Current":500,"OVP":8125,"OCP":250}}
{"Command":"WriteOutputOn","Response":{"On":true}}
{"Command":"WriteOutputOff","Response":{"On":false}}

Monitoring Output

This example is a more involved example showing how one may read data from the JSON output and convert it into a tabular form using PowerShell cmdlets. This primarily serves to illustrate how PowerShell may be used as glue logic between two CLI utilities to perform a more complicated task.

vicon --off --delay 1000 --mv 7500 --ma 400 --on --ra 50 1 --json | `
  ForEach-Object { $_ | ConvertFrom-Json } | `
  Where-Object { $_.Command -eq 'ReadActState' } | `
  Select-Object -ExpandProperty Response | `
  Select-Object -ExpandProperty ActiveState | `
  Select-Object -Property Timestamp,FaultStatus,OutputMode,Voltage,Current | `
  Format-Table

Timestamp        FaultStatus OutputMode Voltage Current
---------        ----------- ---------- ------- -------
11:50:50.6286131           0          0     285      61
11:50:50.6421596           0          1    6432     188
11:50:50.6574657           0          1    7087     148
11:50:50.6719755           0          1    7296     108
11:50:50.6871800           0          1    7399      79
11:50:50.7029259           0          1    7450      56
11:50:50.7182109           0          1    7472      41
11:50:50.7325633           0          1    7482      30
11:50:50.7484842           0          1    7486      23
11:50:50.7635261           0          1    7488      18
11:50:50.7795500           0          1    7490      14
11:50:50.7959834           0          1    7491      17
11:50:50.8123372           0          1    7492      19
...

Interactive Mode (TUI)

A fully featured text user interface (TUI) is available via the --interactive option.

vicon --interactive

Important

The ctrl+c keystroke will immediately exit interactive-mode but will allow for post-interactive commands to execute. This way, a safe series of operations may be performed at conclusion of this mode regardless of whether the user exits with q keystroke or ctrl+c.

Themes

Currently themes are provided via predefined configurations. A future update may introduce customizable themes.

The below are the basic themes available. More may be defined in future updates, see --help for more details on the --theme option.

• classic The (mostly) original theme used in this application. Offers mixed coloring to help convey operating status.
• black-and-white A (mostly) black-and-white option that is perhaps the best option for terminal compatibility.
• grey A monotone color palette, for those that like to keep things simple.
• Various color-accented themes:
  • dark-red, dark-green, blue, blue-violet, dark-magenta, cyan, gold

Additional

Tab-Completions

A tab-completer is available in the completion folder, offerring an improved user-experience. This module leverages PS-HelpParser to automatically parse the help documentation and provide tab-completion results to the user.

The completion file is provided in:

./completion/VIConCompletion.psm1

With the HelpParser module installed via PSGallery import both the parser and the completion module via:

Import-Module HelpParser
Import-Module <full_path_to_file>/VIConCompletion.psm1

Add the above to your $PROFILE to make the changes persist between sessions.

WireShark Dissector

A Lua dissector is provided in the ./wireshark/ directory. This dissector offers a way to debug and investigate behavior of the ATK-DP100's HID interface.

License

Copyright © Jon Carrier

This project is licensed under the MIT license. For more details please refer to LICENSE. This software depends on the following third party components:

• AlientTek's ATK-DP100DLL
• Spectre.Console (https://github.com/spectreconsole/spectre.console/LICENSE.md)
• Newtonsoft.Json (https://github.com/JamesNK/Newtonsoft.Json/blob/master/LICENSE.md)