Carrier Infinity

[amirm]

Jesus, you could get CQC *and* the Aprilaire for less, and do a helluva lot more.

They are clearly out of their mind over there in Carrier land.

Did you ever find out whether the Aprilaire would work with that furnace?

They sent a vague answer back, saying if there are standard thermostat wires, it could control it but I would not be able to use any Carrier specific features.

So I went back and beat up my general contractor and the HVAC guy for not warning me about this cost when we picked this unit (based on their recommendation) and the two agreed to eat the cost at their end. So it is ending well for me, but alas, not for others in the same boat.

 

[jbgolee]

I spent last 4 days trying to get some answer from carrier and their dealers - got nothing useful.

Does anybody have the command list of the RS485 bus, in the carrier world known as the ABCD, where AB is half duplex RS485 signals?

 

[Qai]

I spent last 4 days trying to get some answer from carrier and their dealers - got nothing useful.

Does anybody have the command list of the RS485 bus, in the carrier world known as the ABCD, where AB is half duplex RS485 signals?

Nope - but I have added an RS485 board to my bus and am actively receiving the data. I have had some success in seeing a pattern in the communication. It is very much hex based with some Ascii responses. Has anyone been down this path? I can't find much in the way of searching in Google to see if anyone is trying to communicate via RS485 vs the SAM RS232.

 

[3tones]

I spent last 4 days trying to get some answer from carrier and their dealers - got nothing useful.

Does anybody have the command list of the RS485 bus, in the carrier world known as the ABCD, where AB is half duplex RS485 signals?

Nope - but I have added an RS485 board to my bus and am actively receiving the data. I have had some success in seeing a pattern in the communication. It is very much hex based with some Ascii responses. Has anyone been down this path? I can't find much in the way of searching in Google to see if anyone is trying to communicate via RS485 vs the SAM RS232.

I've taken a look at the data as well, but wasn't able to come up with much. What speed did you connect at?

 

[pipeman]

I have the same Infinity system and want control through my Elk, Premise or some other low cost method.
I assume the PDF file posted last year shows the manipulated data from the Carrier interface, not the traffic to and from the thermostat?

 

[3tones]

I have the same Infinity system and want control through my Elk, Premise or some other low cost method.
I assume the PDF file posted last year shows the manipulated data from the Carrier interface, not the traffic to and from the thermostat?

That is correct. The only chance at figuring out the actual stat protocol would probably to have the ethernet interface to see what is going on - for example change a value and watch the raw data.

 

[pipeman]

What are you using to monitor the bus? Generic RS485-RS232?

It seems to be the same situation all over the "smart appliances" field;
Make a product that is inherently smart, and is capable of being much smarter by being connected to the rest of the home.
They then design a simple interface to that system that costs $20, but charge $500, $1500 etc, meanwhile each one uses methods and protocols that are all over the place.

Maybe they could start selling without support?
....right!

 

[3tones]

What are you using to monitor the bus? Generic RS485-RS232?

It seems to be the same situation all over the "smart appliances" field;
Make a product that is inherently smart, and is capable of being much smarter by being connected to the rest of the home.
They then design a simple interface to that system that costs $20, but charge $500, $1500 etc, meanwhile each one uses methods and protocols that are all over the place.

Maybe they could start selling without support?
....right!

I have generic RS485 to USB converter. According to their document for the APM tech tool (KGASD0301APM) techs just use a B&B 485 converter for diagnostics (B&B #485SD9TB).

Although I don't agree with how much they charge for the interface, I do understand the need for a proprietary control bus. When controlling critical HVAC equipment via a "network" it's best to keep everyone off it for reliabilities sake. Even open protocols in the commercial HVAC automation world (BACnet) don't provide the abilities to build a fully functional control system using just what is defined in the BACnet specification. Vendors end up using the proprietary provisions in BACnet to make a system that works like the user would expect.

 

[pipeman]

I ordered both a generic RS485 to USB converter and one of the Quatech 4 port devices, that everyone is talking about.

What software would you recommend to analyze, manipulate or send test data?

Sonny

 

[fcwilt]

I ordered both a generic RS485 to USB converter and one of the Quatech 4 port devices, that everyone is talking about.

What software would you recommend to analyze, manipulate or send test data?

Sonny

This is what I use for things like this:

http://www.docklight.de/info_en.htm

However I don't know if you can connect to a USB device. However USB is not your only option.

 

[3tones]

I usually use a few things:

realterm http://realterm.sourceforge.net/
If you donate, you get "spy-mode" which allows you to watch the data without a breakout box. Super handy.

talbreakout http://www.taltech.com/TALtech_web/news/breakout.htm
Really handy virtual breakout box. Steps between two ports to see what is happening. View only.

com0com http://com0com.sourceforge.net/
create virtual serial ports

Here an example: virtcom1 and virtcom2 are created with com0com. With this setup you can watch what is going on between the hardware and software it is communicating with.
Physical Comport <-> TALBreakout <-> virtcom1 <->virtcom2 <-> application

The hard part here is you are starting totally blind. No one has any idea what is going on with the protocol, and there is no command/response traffic to see what is going on. This would be a tough one to figure out.

 

[Qai]

I spent last 4 days trying to get some answer from carrier and their dealers - got nothing useful.

Does anybody have the command list of the RS485 bus, in the carrier world known as the ABCD, where AB is half duplex RS485 signals?

Nope - but I have added an RS485 board to my bus and am actively receiving the data. I have had some success in seeing a pattern in the communication. It is very much hex based with some Ascii responses. Has anyone been down this path? I can't find much in the way of searching in Google to see if anyone is trying to communicate via RS485 vs the SAM RS232.

I've taken a look at the data as well, but wasn't able to come up with much. What speed did you connect at?

I believe I was able to decode at 38400, 8,n,1. I've written a small program in C to read ttyS0. Have you also gotten your hands on the Bryant access zone software. Someone posted an old link, I think it's on this board somewhere. It communicates at 9600/8/n/1 but I think I can bridge that. I looked at the protocol coming from the Bryant software and it looks very much like what I'm seeing come off the 485. So close but so lazy to finish off the last 30 minutes of programming to create the bridge.

 

[3tones]

I believe I was able to decode at 38400, 8,n,1. I've written a small program in C to read ttyS0. Have you also gotten your hands on the Bryant access zone software. Someone posted an old link, I think it's on this board somewhere. It communicates at 9600/8/n/1 but I think I can bridge that. I looked at the protocol coming from the Bryant software and it looks very much like what I'm seeing come off the 485. So close but so lazy to finish off the last 30 minutes of programming to create the bridge.

What do you mean by "bridge"? If you mean sniff, then some of the programs I listed above will work.

I tried to message you, but could not... please email me when you have a moment.

 

[Qai]

I believe I was able to decode at 38400, 8,n,1. I've written a small program in C to read ttyS0. Have you also gotten your hands on the Bryant access zone software. Someone posted an old link, I think it's on this board somewhere. It communicates at 9600/8/n/1 but I think I can bridge that. I looked at the protocol coming from the Bryant software and it looks very much like what I'm seeing come off the 485. So close but so lazy to finish off the last 30 minutes of programming to create the bridge.

What do you mean by "bridge"? If you mean sniff, then some of the programs I listed above will work.

I tried to message you, but could not... please email me when you have a moment.

Hey 3tones, can't seem to e-mail to you either. What I meant by bridge is to connect the bryant software communicating at 9600 to my C pgm communicating with the furnace at 38400. I figure I'll extend my C pgm so that it accepts I/O across a socket, and then do the same with the PC running the bryant program, by adding a virtual comm port that can also communicate across a socket. I don't have to worry about sniffing, that base is covered.

If you are interested in playing around with the C program I've been fiddling with they you can download / upload it here:
http://drop.io/7ctgio6
Hey who knows, maybe someone will cure my lazyness and add the socket bridge. BTW, try settings of 38400 8 n 0 and option 6 (I parse the messages by what I think is a typical message delimiter)

 

[3tones]

The inability to read this communication has been bothering me. I've been working hard on this over the past week and have been making headway, but could really use input from someone that has a SAM and a RS485 converter. If you have one, please PM/email me and let's chat.