⚡ Serial Studio X

A production-ready, open-source Modbus TCP/RTU/ASCII desktop client

Multi-connection Modbus dashboard · Live sparklines & gauges · Raw frame inspector · Threshold alerts · Workspace persistence

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🎯 What is Serial Studio X?

Serial Studio X is a cross-platform Electron desktop application for engineers, technicians, and developers working with industrial Modbus devices. Connect to PLCs, sensors, drives, and any Modbus-compliant hardware over TCP/IP, RTU serial, or ASCII — all from one beautifully designed dashboard.

No cloud. No subscription. No telemetry. Just a fast, offline-capable tool that works.

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✨ Features

🔌 Protocol Support

• Modbus TCP/IP — Connect to any Modbus TCP server over LAN/WAN
• Modbus RTU — Serial port communication (RS-232/RS-485) with full flow control
• Modbus ASCII — ASCII-encoded serial mode for legacy devices
• Function Codes — FC01, FC02, FC03, FC04 (coils & registers), FC23 (read/write)

📊 Live Dashboard

• Multi-connection panels — Monitor dozens of devices simultaneously in a responsive drag-and-drop grid
• Per-register widgets — Switch each register between table view, sparkline chart, or gauge — live
• Data type decoding — uint16, int16, float32, uint32, int32, binary, hex, ascii with configurable scale and offset
• Sparkline history — Configurable time window (seconds) per register with recharts rendering at up to 60 fps

🔍 Raw Frame Inspector

• Capture every TX/RX byte in real time
• Build and send arbitrary Modbus frames manually
• Hex + decimal display side-by-side

🚨 Threshold Alerts

• Per-register low/high limit configuration
• Native OS desktop notifications when limits are breached
• Visual indicator states: ok / low / high

💾 Workspace Persistence

• Save and restore complete connection layouts (JSON)
• Export register logs as CSV or JSON
• Virtualised log drawer handles millions of rows without lag

🛡️ Privacy First

• 100% offline — zero telemetry, zero analytics, zero cloud
• All data stays on your machine
• Open source under GPL v3

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📦 Installation

Download the latest release for your platform from the Releases page.

🍎 macOS

Chip	File
Apple Silicon (M1 / M2 / M3 / M4)	Serial-Studio-X-*-arm64.dmg
Intel (x86_64)	Serial-Studio-X-*-x64.dmg

Gatekeeper warning: Since the app is not notarized, right-click → Open → Open on first launch, or run:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Serial\ Studio\ X.app

All other platforms (Windows, Linux) are also built and published automatically — grab the appropriate binary from the Releases page.

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🚀 Quick Start

1. Add a Modbus TCP Connection

1. Click + in the left sidebar
2. Set Protocol → TCP
3. Enter Host (e.g. 192.168.1.100) and Port (default 502)
4. Set Unit ID (slave address, e.g. 1)
5. Set Poll Interval (e.g. 500 ms)
6. Click Connect

2. Configure Registers

1. Click Edit Registers on a connection panel
2. Add a Register Group — pick a Function Code, start address, and register count
3. For each register, set:
   • Label — friendly name (e.g. "Motor RPM")
   • Data Type — float32, int16, uint16, etc.
   • Scale / Offset — engineering unit conversion (e.g. ×0.1 for tenths)
   • Unit — display unit (e.g. RPM, °C, bar)
   • Widget — table | sparkline | gauge

3. Set Alerts

1. Click the ⚠️ icon on any register row
2. Enable alerts and set low/high limits
3. Enable OS Notification to get desktop popups when limits are breached

4. Save Your Workspace

File → Save Workspace — saves your complete layout as a .json file you can reload later.

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🖥️ Platform Support

Platform	Architecture	Status
macOS 12+	Apple Silicon (arm64)	✅ Native
macOS 12+	Intel (x86_64)	✅ Native
Windows 10/11	x86_64	✅ Native
Ubuntu 20.04+	x86_64	✅ Native
Fedora 36+	x86_64	✅ Native
Any Linux	x86_64	✅ AppImage

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🏗️ Architecture

Serial Studio X uses a strict three-layer Electron process model for reliability and security:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Renderer Process (React 18 + Zustand)               │
│  ├─ Dashboard (react-grid-layout)                    │
│  ├─ RegisterRow → sparkline / gauge / table widget   │
│  ├─ RawFrameInspector + LogDrawer                    │
│  └─ window.api (contextBridge) — NO Node access      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Main Process (Electron + Node.js)                   │
│  ├─ worker-registry.ts — spawns/kills workers        │
│  ├─ transform.ts — uint16 → typed value decoding     │
│  ├─ alert-engine.ts — threshold checks + OS notifs   │
│  ├─ file-io.ts — workspace JSON + CSV/JSON export    │
│  └─ ipc-router.ts — all ipcMain.handle handlers      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Worker Threads (one per connection)                 │
│  └─ modbus-worker.ts                                 │
│     ├─ Owns the Modbus socket / serial port          │
│     ├─ Poll loop at configurable pollIntervalMs      │
│     ├─ Async read/write queue (no concurrent ops)    │
│     └─ Exponential-backoff auto-reconnect            │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Data flow:
Worker poll loop → poll-result postMessage → Main: transform + alert check → IPC push to renderer (≤60 Hz) → Zustand store merge → React re-render

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🛠️ Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+
• npm 10+
• Python 3.x (for native module compilation)
• Xcode Command Line Tools (macOS) or Visual Studio Build Tools (Windows)

Setup

git clone https://github.com/grizzly-monkey/serial-studio-x.git
cd serial-studio-x
npm install

Commands

npm run dev          # Start with hot reload (Vite HMR for renderer)
npm run build        # Build all layers (main + preload + renderer)
npm run dist         # Build + package for current OS
npm run dist:mac     # macOS DMG + ZIP (native arch)
npm run dist:win     # Windows NSIS installer + portable .exe
npm run dist:linux   # Linux AppImage + .deb + .rpm

Project Structure

src/
├── main/               # Main process
│   ├── index.ts        # Entry point, app lifecycle
│   ├── ipc-router.ts   # IPC handlers
│   ├── worker-registry.ts
│   ├── alert-engine.ts
│   └── file-io.ts
├── preload/
│   └── index.ts        # contextBridge → window.api
├── renderer/           # React app
│   ├── App.tsx
│   ├── store/
│   │   ├── connections.ts  # Live values, sparklines
│   │   └── workspace.ts    # Persisted config
│   └── components/
│       ├── Dashboard.tsx
│       ├── ConnectionPanel.tsx
│       ├── RegisterRow.tsx
│       ├── RawFrameInspector.tsx
│       ├── LogDrawer.tsx
│       └── ...
├── shared/
│   ├── types.ts        # Shared TypeScript types
│   └── ipc-channels.ts # IPC channel name constants
└── workers/
    └── modbus-worker.ts  # Per-connection worker thread

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how to get started:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a branch — git checkout -b feature/my-feature
3. Make your changes and ensure npm run build passes
4. Open a Pull Request with a clear description

Reporting Bugs

Please open a GitHub Issue with:

• Your OS and version
• Steps to reproduce
• Expected vs actual behavior
• Any relevant log output

Feature Requests

Open a GitHub Discussion — let's talk about it before implementing.

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🔐 Security

This application:

• Makes no network requests except to the Modbus devices you configure
• Stores all data locally in your OS app data directory
• Has no auto-update that could deliver unsigned payloads
• Is fully auditable — the entire source is in this repository

Found a security issue? Please open a private Security Advisory rather than a public issue.

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📄 License

Serial Studio X is free software distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

You are free to use, study, share, and improve it. If you distribute modified versions, you must also make the source available under the same license.

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Built with ❤️ using Electron, React, modbus-serial, and recharts

⭐ Star this repo if Serial Studio X saves you time!