Recent content by dutchyn

In positive news, it appears that CQC will not become an orphan. Mr Roddey has reconsidered, and is working to find a workable business model. Full details and extensive discussion at CQC forum. Personally, I was looking forward to looking at the BMW of HA software (Control4 is the Rolls...

The fastloop trick worked for me. The rules weren't too hairy; I needed two counters: the first counts the pulses, adding one each pulse the second counter is set on the first alarm pulse to be 8 seconds, and counts down to a readout and reset of the alarm code I figured this out a long time...

NextEnergy.ca, the national ClimateMaster dealer/installer in Canada, has announced the new NE-32-2000 thermostat, a repackaged HAI RC-2000. It's nice to have confirmation that the people here at Cocoontech are leading the technology development. :blush: If NextEnergy is interested in my...

I had the opposite effect, trying to upgrade the firmware in my ECM-1240. I had the expensive cable, but it was unreliable: Paul suggested a cheapy one and it worked.

Note that although you can execute tasks, interrogate system variables, and control non-security components: enable/disable inputs/outputs/lights, you cannot reprogram the rules on the Elk via your own software. Adding rules/tasks/inputs/outputs requires special security handshaking that only...

I'm seeing prices about 66% higher. At that rate, a Lutron-4 system comes in at 3/4 of the ALC price (including professional installation -- no DIY effort at all), and a Centralite Jetstream at about 1/2. ALC pricing is now at a premium product level.

The cable's working; now when I get the firmware to set unit ids, I can monitor 14 things - right now the only interesting thing I get is total power consumption. That's a good start, because we're logging 150kWh/day used. Admittedly, we have geothermal heating and electric clothes dryer and...

Aha! The etherPort is configured as a push device, not a pull device. The etherPort can have a DHCP (floating) address, because it directs the RS-232 communication to a specific address. I expected a pull device, where a floating terminal would connect to a fixed, known service that was the...

I'm a computer scientist, not an electrical engineer; so I may have goofed. When I designed it, I figured Tx was positive heading toward the negative at the DB9. I want that positive to NOT go into the other Tx. IIRC diodes have the triangle pointing in the positive to negative direction...

I got a PM from Paul (BTechRep). He confirms that the MUX cable is just as Ira describes. I cobbled one together with spare parts: and it seems to work: when I power one unit up, I can query it; when I power it down and power the other one up, I can query the second one. I cannot verify...

What is the licensing/pricing model for this product? I gather from other posts that licenses expire, but I can't find anything about pricing and licensing here or on the J9 website. Before I standardize on a top-level HA system (Premise, J9, Indigo, ...), I would like to know what the future...

How difficult is it to open up the AV strings table of the XEP firmware for individual design? Currently I'm controlling my HTD MCA-66 and Pioneer VSX21-TXH via serial lines from XSPs. I'd probably spring for a couple of IP232s to control the devices if I knew I could choose the ASCII strings...

I just recalled that Brultech has a rep here on the BBS: BTechRep. According to his/er profile, s/he hasn't logged in since November 19. I sent a PM. Chris D.

A little Ruby thing I wrote to send out strings and accept/parse data into a csv format. I didn't recall that ... so I figured dumping one ecm would dump them all. Maybe I'm ok with one etherport after all.

There is also the (difficult to find) EDT iLine product too.