Configuring Sensor Restarts Via Switch Ground
Written by Cameron Everett
Updated at March 10th, 2025
Table of Contents
Some sensors might encounter bugs, freezes or glitches that can be rectified by restarting the sensor.
There is a way to configure periodic sensor resets by wiring the ground wire of the sensor to the switch ground input of the Hawk IO card.
Then you can run a task to toggle the switch from ground to non-ground. This will break the circuit powering the sensor and cause it to reset.
Switch Ground (SWGND) Current Limit
The Hawks SWGND is limited to 1A of input current by the plug-in card connector.
An example of the Device Manager Parameters required to switch ground is shown below.
By setting the active level to "Ground", and the "Always on" option to "Yes", the switch ground is set to act as ground by default, powering the sensor.
^In the Task tab, set the interrupt threshold (in this case 2 minutes) and the action to undertake when the task is run. In this instance, it's Digital Output Action 1.
Configure the Digital Output Action to change the switch ground input when actioned. Connect the switched ground output state to Active. Set an appropriate timeout, which is how long the sensor will be powered down for.
