Re: translator question

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:43d7ee99.297792312@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> It will not connect to the ADI bus. The Ocelot can only deal with ADNET
> devices it knows about.

It seemed like a logical way to "dial into" the Ocelot.  Someone over in the
ADI forum discussed using the IR IN and OUT ports to communicate very
quickly with the Ocelot in a way that it could understand - parsing and
acting upon unique data strings.  In this case, I believe it was someone
wanting to use an RF remote fan control via an Ocelot.  The discussion soon
veered way over my head when it got to using an RF receiver to feed the
Ocelot IR IN after stripping the carrier frequency. (Very loose paraphrase
by a non-techie -- may not resemble actual technical dialog in the least!!!)
I can find the URL if you're remotely interested.

> It depends on how you want to arrange things. You can connect the Ocelot's
> TW523 port to a Rosetta TTL port and connect the other TTL port to the
TW523
> and have Rosetta route some commands to the TW523 or translate them and
send
> them out a serial port to other devices (e.g. 2414S, UPB PIM). The Ocelot
> will think it's talking to a TW523. You can tell Rosetta to send PLC to
the
> Ocelot in response to inputs from any other connected device.

That sounds pretty interesting because it's a cinch to wire your device into
the circuit that way.  It's also the logical place to intercept and
translate PLC traffic.

> Or you can connect the Ocelot's serial port to one of Rosetta's serial
ports
> and control everything the Ocelot is capable of doing with it's ASCII
> protocol.

I wish I knew what that was.  CMAX appears only to send ASCII strings.  It's
clear that CMAX can "talk" to the Ocelot through that DB9 port.  Sorry to be
dense on this but I want to understand it cold.  I've seen references to
bidirectional RS232 Bobcats in the work, but AFAIK the Ocelot can only send
ASCII through DB9 port on the box, a serial Bobcat or to their modem for
paging.

Ocelots *can* have programs loaded and variables in a programming tweaked by
Cmax, so they obviously can receive data through that DB-9 connector.  But
there seems to be no way I know of to get the Ocelot to programmatically do
anything based on received serial port ASCII commands.

I'm interested in this aspect of the Ocelot and just had a conversation with
John Warner about how he sets his "guest" and "holiday" flags.  Although I
envisioned a secret Bat Cave with arrays of toggles labeled "Guest Mode" and
"Holiday Mode" he assured me he just sets those flags via CMAX.  But
stopping the running program to tweak variables from the CMAX console is a
long way from sending "A1 ON NOW" in ASCII to the Ocelot's serial port and
having it do anything.

> Or you can do both.
>
> Rosetta  will understand the X-10 PLC (i.e. TW523) protocol, the CM11A
> protocol, the 2414S protocol, the ADI ASCII X-10 protocol, the UPB PIM
> protocol (and maybe a few more).

What about ZigBee and Z-Wave?

> For other ASCII protocols (including things
> like telling the Ocelot to send IR) the user can specify what to send to
the
> appropriate port(s).
>
> I used a simple ASCII protocol for the BX24-AHT X-10 functions. I'll try
to
> adapt that so you can use the same ASCII command to send X-10 to any
> X10-capable device. I may be able to adapt it for UPB but I'm not so sure
> about the 2414S.

Any more languages and you'll have to change the name to the Babelizer.
What's that Arthur Clarke story, "The Nine Billion Names of God?" Once
you've included all the HA languages in your device, the world will end!
This is a pretty unusual time in the HA world with so many new technologies
appearing pretty much simultaneously.  Well, except for poor old ZigBee.  In
any case, you have your work cut out for you.

> The circuit board will only require soldering if you want to add the xPort
> or the hardware RTC. There will be sockets for the ZX-24 and RTC chip,
some
> SMT components will be preinstalled but the super capacitor, xPort and
3.3V
> power supply for the xPort will require soldering.

To give you some idea of my lack of soldering skills - I'm having lots of
trouble de-soldering and resoldering jumper wires in an RS-232 DB25 breakout
box.  Even with big, swing arm lighted magnified, a nice small soldering
iron and an alligator clip "helper" to hold the work, I still can't make a
go of it.  Shaky hands, bad eyesight, bad hand-eye coordination or whatever,
I just can't do precision work like that.

Now the IR circuits we talked about a few messages ago seem to be within my
limited soldering skills, but it's really simple stuff with a low component
and solder joint count. Give me nice big oak planks and I can make furniture
and all sorts of stuff, but it's on a scale that I can work at.  Modern
electronics is awfully small compared to your basic woodworking project.
It's why I am wary of anything that required much soldering expertise and
have been questioning that part of the process very closely.  I have a
fairly big box of things I have soldered to death and I don't want to add to
it!

> The non-xPort part of the
> board is powered from a +5V *regulated* power supply using a 2.1mm plug
but
> I'll also provide solder points in case you want to permanently attach the
> regulated wall transformer to avoid accidental use of a higher unregulated
> supply. I'm trying to use parts that are available from Mouser (except the
> ZX-24) to keep it as simple as possible.
>
> Some HA devices have their own RTC (e.g. 2414S, Ocelot) and Rosetta can
use
> those for backing up its native software RTC so the hardware RTC will not
be
> needed by eveybody.

> Adding the xPort web-enables everything connected to Rosetta. There's
quite
> a bit of memory in the xPort for a web server and it is capable of sending
> email but I haven't gotten that far yet.
>
> Lantronix has virtual serial port drivers for the xPort - similar to
> USB-to-serial adapters. This will mean that software written to talk to
> Rosetta over the PC serial port can use TCP/IP with no changes.
>
> I chose not to add USB because that would add about $15 cost. Not everyone
> will need USB and those who do can buy USB-to-serial adapters for that
> amount. I will test and recommend a USB-to-serial adapter. Some are not
fast
> enough to handle downloading new firmware to the ZX-24.

I've noticed that the newer motherboards now have a single DB9 serial port
instead of the long-standard two.  If it works through an adapter, that's
not a big deal - especially since there's no cost benefit to having it built
in.

> BTW, I also considered calling it Ernestine.

"We don't care, we don't have to:  We're the phone company!"

Ah yes, the good old days.

--
Bobby G.