Quote:> Can I ask what RS485/RS232 converter you are using (Make and Model)
I just bought a cheap one from ebay. Its a Sintech (from China) one which is probably one of the cheapest on the market. (Search ebay for RS485.) An RS485 has 4 connectors; just use 2 of them (called either D+/A or D-/B). The PRT-N has blue and yellow comms cables. Blue goes to B and yellow goes to A.
Quote:> I don\'t know much about programming but would love to know more about how you managed to get it talking using perl. Have you got anything you can send me?
Send me your email address and I\'ll email you the code. Its very simple. Open COM port, Send x bytes, Read y bytes back.
Mike
Yes - count me in for Heatmiser integration. I need to revisit this in more detail, but can see a lot of possibilities.
A reminder also that the Esprit scene control switches have temp sensors. No display but could probably make use of the voice feedback if say multi-room and I dare say other possibilities. So could be used as a Stat. (In the EIB/KNX world there is a variant with a display.)
Also the Heatmiser type colour screen has an interesting price / performance point and would make a good interface to Comfort even as a self contained unit. But since the KT01 stopped production I guess there is probably something in the pipeline anyway.
Corect me if I\'m wrong - but we can easily send RS232 commands out to Heatmiser via the converter - but Comfort cannot read rs232 values and bring them in to use. Not without a specific UCM to map to something internally ie counters
What we need is a UCM that you can \"remap\" incoming responses or values into a counter - that way it could work with any system
ie Send an rs232 command to a heating system and the value that gets returned store in a specific range of counters. very simple , very powerful.
Takes me full circle. Behind the scenes I have been looking at how we might put together a Universal UCM (UUCM) both for Heatmiser and other devices...
A UCM card that could be preconfigured via a PC with a custom interpreter to allow two-way comms to different devices. Would allow you to map counters, respond to certain strings, transfer data etc.
I would also suggest that so additional work would be required within firmware and comfigurator to support Maths operators. As NDH says there is already a thermometer in the SCS\'s but trying to use them without being able to speak the temps or do basic maths is tricky if you need it to be interactive. The if\'s & nested tests within the beta comfigurator are much better though.
I think this is a great idea and have given it thought in the past. I have even looked at developing an interface module to go between the UCM and whatever system you want to integrate with. If all the interface did was map a string (or part of a string) from the external system to comfort in a look up table then I am certain that you would be able to do just about anything. So if the external system sent BedroomLightOn and the UCM (or interface module) had a table that mapped that string to O!0101 (assuming that the bedroom light was switch by output 1) then the external system would be able to tell comfort to perform operations.
FYI. The currently shipping PRT-N V3 has a totally new and more elaborate protocol which is different from earlier models. Their tech support department will send you a copy if you ask nicely. Their site also describes how to tell if you\'ve got a v3 model.
The new protocol has a non-standard CRC16 checksum and there aren\'t any example checksums in the spec - there is source code though. The command to read back all the data from a PRT-N V3 set to address 01 is:-
01 0A 81 00 00 00 FF FF 2C 09
The unit won\'t reply to any message if the checksum is wrong. RS485 connections are identical to the earlier model.
Ian
Could someone ask them nicely for the new protocol?
I hope they dont keep changing it though
I\'ve ordered a Heatmiser PRT-ENTS to test.
I fully intend to hack around with the protocol for open source purposes. Do Heatmiser have an NDA on the protocol (in which case, it would be better to hack it rather than be tainted)?
Thanks for the tip off on the CRC - had bitter experiences on non standard CRC-16 sums!!!
Ta
Tim
[user=29]cgiltrow[/user] wrote: Quote:I think this is a great idea and have given it thought in the past. I have even looked at developing an interface module to go between the UCM and whatever system you want to integrate with. If all the interface did was map a string (or part of a string) from the external system to comfort in a look up table then I am certain that you would be able to do just about anything. So if the external system sent BedroomLightOn and the UCM (or interface module) had a table that mapped that string to O!0101 (assuming that the bedroom light was switch by output 1) then the external system would be able to tell comfort to perform operations.
That would work if the strings are like in your example, eg \"BedroomLightOn\" etc which you could map to a string to Comfort, eg \"OP0101\"
However there may be variables in the message, eg House X, Room Y, Device Z, Operation Y, Scene Z so that may require many hundreds of strings to map to Comfort.
There is also a difficulty of providing values for feedback to counters from the message, so some means of handling parameters or variables is needed for a truly universal UCM Interface