Re: translator question

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

I may have participated in that ADI forum thread. I sent ADI a prototype of
an RF module for use with the IR input about two years ago. They lost it
internally and never tested it. I didn't follow up as it wasn't that big of
a deal to me - I was merely offering them a free design they could use if
they wanted to do the necessary FCC tests.

ADI has an 8 character ASCII protocol for controlling the Ocelot via the DB9
RS232 port. It's on their website somewhere. It allows for X10 & IR control
as well as a few other things. I really haven't worked with it for a few
years so details are fuzzy. The BX24-AHT used it when interfacing with a
Ocelot. I used their binary protocol with Commander-X. John M. Jones who
mentioned the BX24-AHT in that other recent thread found and corrected an
error in the documentation for the ASCII protocol. I can email you a
corrected copy if you cannot find it on the ADI website.

Some examples...

     send B 11 once  +X011001
     send B ON once  +X011801
     send B DIM 5 times +X012005

But C-Max is the only way to do more complex logic. You really should read
Guy Lavoie's ladder logic tutorial for C-Max.

If someone releases a Zigbee based system that has a serial controller and
it looks like it will become popular and someone will loan me the controller
(and/or do the testing in case it's a simple ASCII protocol) I or users can
implement it. I suspect there will be a myriad of Zigbee systems, each with
its own high level protocol. As I said upfront I'm not willing to buy one of
every controller in order to add support to Rosetta. This is a DIY
non-profit project. The key to Rosetta is that it's really simple to do as
long as you don't have to write dedicated code for dozens or hundreds of
protocols. The memory in the ZX-24 is extremely limited.

The same goes for Z-Wave although I don't expect Z-Wave to be around for
much longer. In 2-3 years about all we've seen here are posts from dealers,
one of whom is so clueless that he thinks Intel incorporating it in their
proprietary version of uPnP (along with a few million other devices) is a
big deal. There has been a dearth of posts from Z-Wave users. I think its an
IPO play. Any day now I'm expecting to read that it's a big success in
Korea. ;)

Anything with an ASCII protocol that uses RS232 at 9600 bps or less and
doesn't require handshaking is already supported by Rosetta. In other words,
if you can control the device just by sending an ASCII string and there's no
need for ACK/NAK, etc. Rosetta can handle that without having any native
knowledge of the protocol. Examples are the ADI ASCII protocol and HAI's
ASCII protocol. Since I expect there will be some ADI users who will be
interested in Rosetta I will build in knowledge of the CPU-XA, Ocelot and
Leopard for X-10. Users will still need to use the ASCII protocol for
anything beyond basic X-10.

Think of Rosetta as a switchboard operator with a little less intelligence
than Ernestine.

You may need to find a neighborhood kid who can solder. Rather than add cost
to Rosetta, I'll provide instructions on how to replace the RS-232 cable on
an MR26 to bypass its voltage regulator and supply it with +5V *regulated*
from Rosetta. The cable has to be changed anyway to mate with Rosetta's RJ11
connectors for the four serial ports.

"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>"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.