Premise HELP - DSC PC5401 help / advice please

Hi ALL,

Is there anyone out there who has managed to get the PC5401 to interact via Premise to there alarm panel? Any help to even get started just monitoring the serial port info coming in would be great, I have a copy of the SDK and know what the info is incoming but how to setup a device to react to a particular set of data would be great.
Many Thanks
Regards
Graham

z28camaro said:

Hi ALL,

Is there anyone out there who has managed to get the PC5401 to interact via Premise to there alarm panel? Any help to even get started just monitoring the serial port info coming in would be great, I have a copy of the SDK and know what the info is incoming but how to setup a device to react to a particular set of data would be great.
Many Thanks
Regards
Graham

Click to expand...

There was never one developed that I am aware of. I had a PC5401 but it along with my entire HA system got zapped by lightning (but not the DSC alarm itself ) I now have the newer version of the interface called a IT-100. Right now I have it hooked up to hyper terminal just to log events and on occasion run pc5401.exe to update the clock. Jumping ship to CQC so will be writing a driver for that.

-Ben

HomeSeer has 2 plugins for this alarm in case your are interested.

Perhaps we should all follow Rupp's lead by heading over to the Homeseer forum and shill for other products. Your helpfulness will surely win you the admiration of Homeseer's community. Dean Roddey (CQC), David Howard (PowerHome), and Scott Leonard (HouseBot) would become heroes if they promoted their products on Homeseer's forum!

But don't stop there! Be sure to drop in on Eric Vic's Hobby-Boards forum and explain the virtues of your 1-wire products. Your good deeds will certainly inspire Spanky to head over to the HAI forum and point out ELK's superiority. Brian Yokum of HAI can return the favor in the ELK forum.

Golly gosh, Cocoontech would become such a wonderfully helpful place, wouldn't it?

Easy 123. That's the beauty of this message board - it's "package" independent .... isn't it?

We're all free to say whatever we want within the bounds of the forum's guidelines ... and then the moderators have the last word.

In the absence of commandments, common courtesy keeps people from proselytzing in the Marketplace forums. For example, I haven't seen representatives from ELK and HAI promoting themselves within their competitor's forum ... not even under the pretext of being helpful.

z28camaro said:

Hi ALL,

Is there anyone out there who has managed to get the PC5401 to interact via Premise to there alarm panel? Any help to even get started just monitoring the serial port info coming in would be great, I have a copy of the SDK and know what the info is incoming but how to setup a device to react to a particular set of data would be great.
Many Thanks
Regards
Graham

Click to expand...

Graham do you have the protocol manual for the PC5401? If not, I can provide. You might also want to check out http://www.myalarm.com/myalarmdot2b/dealer_software.aspx It's a great little test tool.

-Ben

Olive Branch...

123 you have done outstanding things with Premise and brought new life and vigor to a platform that at the time was and still is in some respects light years ahead of its time; my comment was not intended as a slam nor a redirect in any way shape or form on the product. I have a great deal of respect for the vision of that development team, it was a master stroke of software architectural genius. Mater of fact I've owned and used Premise for years and years, I started with it back in the day when you had to pay top $$$ for the license. I purchased just after the Motorola acquisition. Sadly Motorola bought Premise for the intellectual property and the people talent not the product itself, hence today's situation, we now have a beautiful orphan.

I never did get the DSC interface working with Premise, not Premise's failure, ultimately it was a time/value choice that I made. Just discovered CQC, bought into the solution it provides. CQC does not support DSC alarm systems either, in their forums they have clearly stated they will not as a developer, that's fine, there are a million and one devices out there to support, the DSC Alarm happens to be what I have on my home, too expensive to replace, it works reliably.

My story, not yours, not Graham's. It looks like he is interested in making his DSC alarm work with Premise because it is what he has and that is what he wants to do, that's cool. Since it appears that his DSC hardware is already in place the relevance of the comments is in sharing alternative solutions that are already developed and working or a potential future state option (me for my new platform choice which I am just stupidly giddy about at the moment - really it's to change everything so that it drives my wife and kids crazy, nah.)

Bottom line Premise is a great software tool deserving of attention, as are each of the other options out there; at the end of the day I believe we are all interested in celebrating the accomplishment of making the technologies we love (old and new, I still use X-10 extensively with success, now that's old) dance to our form of music the way we want to. Taking really complex things, putting even more complex wrappers around them so that when it is all said and done it's highly reliable and easy to use. And we have fun, mostly, making it so, yes?

-Ben

Batwater, we're on the same page.

Without even a hint of sarcasm, I wish you well with your transition to CQC and the development of a DSC driver. CQC is a good product with a strong development team and a dedicated user-community.

CQC has features not found in Premise; Premise has features not found in CQC. As an ex-Premise user, and new CQC user, your lobbying can help make CQC an even better product (i.e. virtual object layer, Class Wizards, C++ driver SDK and/or CML enhancements, graphical depiction of logic, meta-data, etc).

I also frequent the CQC forum because its user-community is doing interesting things (some that I copy and use in Premise). When posting, I avoid name-dropping and make only oblique references to "my HA app" when describing features that, I feel, would benefit a future version of CQC. Dean and Mark make a living from CQC so they don't need posts that lure their clients to competing products. I extend the same courtesy to Johnny (Automation Engine).

Graham and I have discussed the availability of a Premise DSC driver and I indicated that I was unaware of one but he should confirm this with the community. He can use the existing ELK M1 driver as the basis for developing a DSC driver. I've reviewed the PSC5401 protocol. It is nearly as comprehensive as the M1's and would allow for a good driver. Naturally, the messaging protocol is different so some of the 'packet-validation' functions would need to be adapted. If I recall correctly, it lacks the ability to describe a zone's characteristics (Status, LogicalState, PhysicalState, etc) so several properties in the existing driver would have to be removed (but that just simplifies the driver).