VLCB (Versatile Local Control Bus) is an initiative by MERG members to improve CBUSTM by clarifying issues and adding features for diagnostics and troubleshooting.
Note: CBUS is a registered trademark owned by Dr M. Bolton.
A full description of why VLCB was created and how it will achieve its goals are outlined in the document Executive Summary of VLCB
Published versions of the VLCB specifications are located in the VLCB-Documents repository.
The constants of various VLCB entities are kept in the VLCB-defs repository. It contains generated files for many programming languages to aid developing VLCB modules and tools in any of these languages.
Ian Hogg has developed a library for implementing VLCB modules with PIC microprocessors.
Ian Hogg has also developed a VLCB version of the Universal firmware using the PIC library above.
Sven Rosvall and Martin Da Costa has converted the CBUS library created by Duncan Greenwood into a VLCB implementation. This provides communication with the CAN bus using the MCP2515 CAN transceiver. More implementations of other transceivers are being developed but not yet publicly available.
David Harris has written a library in dphVLCB. This provides communicationvia MCP2515/8, Serial, Pico SW CAN, ESP32/Pico Wifi. It is a personal work in progress.
David Ellis has created a test suite to validate VLCB module implementations. This is a crucial tool for ensuring that VLCB modules follow the VLCB specifications.
The VLCB Team consists of:
- Ian Hogg
- Martin Da Costa
- David Harris
- Duncan Greenwood
- Nigel Phillips
- David Ellis
- Sven Rosvall