Patent ID: 6837163

Claim:
An electronic detonator system comprising: a control unit which has intelligence of the system, a plurality of electronic detonators, and a bus which connects said detonators to the control unit, wherein each electronic detonator includes a number of flags which can assume either of two possible values, a first subset of said flags adapted to be set externally from the control unit and a second subset of said flags adapted to be set internally in the detonator, each flag indicating a substate of the respective electronic detonator and at least one flag thereof further obtaining its value on the basis of an internal condition in the electronic detonator, said flags are readable from the control unit, and the control unit is adapted, by means of reading of said flags, to check the state of the respective electronic detonator and to use information which is given by said flags for controlling the operation of the electronic detonator, and wherein communication in a direction away from the control unit to the electronic detonators is provided by means of digital data packets sent by the control unit on said bus which are addressed to one or more of said detonators, whereas communication in a direction away from the electronic detonators to the control unit is provided by means of analog load pulses, on the bus, the analog load pulses being detectable by the control unit, the analog load pulses being responses to reading of said flags.