Apologies and another question

[mikefamig]

Using Cat X cable brings the M1's total bus length down to 2K OAL. To start eliminating components, you can always move them to the panel and connect everything there. No issues means the problem is the media and not firmware/programming.
 
I would start by disconnecting the buried cable and then restrip and, assuming it's flooded cable, remove the grease and meter everything to ground. I don't know of the cable construction, but usually it's a poly outer, then a foil/flooded and then the inner conductors laid within the gel. Very easy to nick and cause a bridge to ground, especially with burial.
 
Let's get back to basics....what is connected to the bus and where (I'm being a little lazy and don't want to go re-read and wade through posts) You state the bus goes from the house to the garage and only to a 212, nothing else? Jumper removed at the panel?

I doubt the bus within the house is the issue, but redoing connections is usually an easy and logical step.

 
I just got disgusted and reset the control using global 45 again. I opened a new account and the only thing connected is the house keypad via dbh and four wired zones.
 
The reasn that  did this is because the system was acting unpredictable. When I tried to remove the wireless by unplugging it from the dbh and re-enrolling the devices the system reported that input expander 2 is missing. There should be no input expander 2 as far as I know.
 
I will try to connect the garage p212s now and see how it goes.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Another reason that I reset the board and opened a new account is that elkrp2 was giving me trouble when I created the last customer account. The program was not closing properly and was leaving a process running. I had to use task manager to kill that process before elkrp would run again.
 
I solved that problem by running elkrp in windows xp compatibility mode. Now it appears to work normally.
 
Mike.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Another reason that I reset the board and opened a new account is that elkrp2 was giving me trouble when I created the last customer account. The program was not closing properly and was leaving a process running. I had to use task manager to kill that process before elkrp would run again.

I have noticed that also on occasion running Windows 7 (latest updates).

 

[mikefamig]

I have noticed that also on occasion running Windows 7 (latest updates).

It is possible that the data base is not being closed properly when the program hangs like that and I'm afraid that it may have been damaged. I wouldn't be concerned if my system wasn't behaving badly.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

 
 The direct bury is about 250' long and my total system does not come anywhere near 4000'. I'm sure that it is less than 1000'.
 
The 250' direct bury is wired directly to the terminals on the control on one end and wired directly to the terminals on the p212s at the garage. There are no rj-45's or other termination to be concerned with. There is a jumper on the p212s to terminate the data bus. Nothing else is connected on this leg, only the p212s.
 
The second branch of the data bus is also wired directly to the terminals on the control on one end and directly wired to the terminals on a dbh in the house.The dbh has 1 wireless tx and one keypad attached to it using rj-45's and this leg of the data bus is terminated with a dbh terminating rj-45.
 
I have been focusing my attention in the garage because the problem goes away when I disconnect the garage but it may be possible that I have a bad connection in the house and that by adding the garage branch and lengthening the data bus I am just worsening the existing problem in the house and symptoms show up in the way of errant chimes.

BBQ ANYONE? It's break time.
 
View attachment 6439
 
Happy Labor Day guys, Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Update for those who are interested.
 
Yesterday I decided to take a new approach to my problem because I have been spinning in place for too long.
 
1 I decided to turn my attention away from the detached garage and look to the house for a problem on the rs-485.
2 I decided to rebuild the customer account because I had been having trouble with elkrp and I wanted to remove it as a potential problem.
 
I wanted to remove one device at a time from the house leg of the rs-485 as a process of elimination and having only 1 keypad and 1 2-way wireless tranceiver attached I decided to remove the wireless so that I still have a keypad to work with. The garage leg was completely disconnected.
 
I rebuilt the customer account from scratch using a good stable working elkrp (all is well). Then I connected to the control which enrolled the 1 keypad and all was well (still good). Then I edited the zones to enable only the 4 wired zones in the house (still good). I let it run that way for a while and then started adding the garage one piece at a time adding the p212s, dbh, and m1kp keypad and still it is all good. It has been running since yesterday evening in that configuration without a glitch.
 
It's too soon to draw conclusions but at this point the evidence points to the wireless device or a corrupt database. At the moment I am leaning towards the 2-way wireless being that it is pretty new and not very well field tested.
 
Mike.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

I remember reading something about the wireless Elk zones needing a certain 'beginning' address or zone numbering...  Do you have this compliance?

 

[pete_c]

Happy Labor Day to you Mike!  Nice picture!
 
Did the same here yesterday.  I make double baked potatoes here with the ribs.
 
Quickie double baked potato recipe - slight labor day tangent here unrelated to automation (its not really as time consuming as it sounds). 
 
Simple; nothing fancy. 
 
1 - scrub / clean baking potatoes
2 - wet; roll them in a fine sea salt (or any salt really).
3 - wrap them in aluminum; put them on the top shelf of the BBQ grill (keep the grill set to high).
4 - bake around 60 minutes
5 - remove the potatoes; unwrap them.  They will have hard / crispy shells (you want this).
6 - use the aluminum to make little double baked potato holders.  I put them all in a little metal tray.
7 - cut the very top 1/4 of the potato skin off.
8 - use a spoon and remove the potato from the skins and put it in a bowl
9 - mix a little butter, couple of teaspoons of milk, salt, pepper and bit of dry Parmesan cheese
10 - stir it up with a fork; keep it sort of chunky and not pasty
11 - you can lay the top of the cut potato skins inside of the main potato or just eat them while you make the rest of the stuff.
12 - with a spoon scoop your chunky potato mix back to the potato shells
13 - garnish the tops with a bit of Parmesan cheese (optional)
14 - put back on second shelf of your grill a few minutes before you finish the ribs.

 

[mikefamig]

I remember reading something about the wireless Elk zones needing a certain 'beginning' address or zone numbering...  Do you have this compliance?

Yes, the elk 2-way wireless adapter needs to be the first add-on input device with the first zone being zone 17 and I believe that 1 adapter can have 144 zones.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Happy Labor Day to you Mike!  Nice picture!
 
Did the same here yesterday.  I make double baked potatoes here with the ribs.
 
Quickie double baked potato recipe - slight labor day tangent here unrelated to automation (its not really as time consuming as it sounds). 
 
Simple; nothing fancy. 
 
1 - scrub / clean baking potatoes
2 - wet; roll them in a fine sea salt (or any salt really).
3 - wrap them in aluminum; put them on the top shelf of the BBQ grill (keep the grill set to high).
4 - bake around 60 minutes
5 - remove the potatoes; unwrap them.  They will have hard / crispy shells (you want this).
6 - use the aluminum to make little double baked potato holders.  I put them all in a little metal tray.
7 - cut the very top 1/4 of the potato skin off.
8 - use a spoon and remove the potato from the skins and put it in a bowl
9 - mix a little butter, couple of teaspoons of milk, salt, pepper and bit of dry Parmesan cheese
10 - stir it up with a fork; keep it sort of chunky and not pasty
11 - you can lay the top of the cut potato skins inside of the main potato or just eat them while you make the rest of the stuff.
12 - with a spoon scoop your chunky potato mix back to the potato shells
13 - garnish the tops with a bit of Parmesan cheese (optional)
14 - put back on second shelf of your grill a few minutes before you finish the ribs.

 
I read your recipe to my wife and she just said - and I quote - "that man is going to heart attack HE!!" It sounds great to me but she's constantly getting between me and the foods I love. I have a wood fired pellet grill here and I love my BBQ autumn in New England is a great time for it. I'll see what I can do about trying those potatoes..
 
Glad to see another foodie here, Mike.

 

[pete_c]

Yup; the potato above is very light on the butter and cheese such that you mostly taste just the potato. 
 
Personally into keeping things very simple.
 
Don't cook many things these days.  Will post a very old methodology of making Paella.  EU cousins lately make it outside in a Paella wok of sorts.

 

[mikefamig]

Yup; the potato above is very light on the butter and cheese such that you mostly taste just the potato. 
 
Personally into keeping things very simple.
 
Don't cook many things these days.  Will post a very old methodology of making Paella.  EU cousins lately make it outside in a Paella wok of sorts.

My wife does the cooking here and would like to see your Paella recipe. I got a Traeger pellet grill about ten years ago do most of the barbecue myself and I've gotten pretty good at the ribs, pulled pork, brisket etc.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Update
 
At this point in rebuilding my system account I have added back 4 wired zones in the house and 7 wired zones in the garage all in the same 1 area. This leaves 1 wired motion in the garage and the wireless tranceiver with it's 4 zones disconnected.  I've been adding zones in groups of a few at a time and there have been no problems. Surprisingly there are zero errors on the data bus. Granted I have been cycling the power each day which resets errors but that is still good.
 
Now while this is all encouraging I still have lost confidence in the system since I don't know what caused that last failure. I plan to connect the wired motion this morning when I get out to the garage but I am hesitant to add the wireless and even more worried about splitting the system up into 2 areas again.
 
Being that the 2-way wireless is so new and the fact that multiple areas are known to be dependable on the elk I plan to set up the areas first.
 
I do have one question at this point concerning data bus errors. In the past the system reported T2A2 with errors which I understood to be the input expander in area 2. Now it reports T1AB. My question is what is the "B"?.
 
I'm always open to suggestions and will post back how it goes as I continue to build it out.
 
Mike.
 
EDIT:
 
I forgot to mention that I have an OVR output expander that controls overhead door motors that is not connected. That will be connected last after i get the security zones working properly.

 

[mikefamig]

OK I don't want to bore you with all of the details of my problems so I'll keep this short but I want to say that I'm starting to feel like a punching bag.
 
This morning after re-installing firmware 5.3.0 on the manufacture's advise to correct auto-rebooting my system made it through the night without rebooting itself. This morning I connected to the control with elkrp and the software found a conflict. It said there was a conflict with the p212s but when I displayed the differences there WERE NONE! The system list and database list were identical.
 
I sent all setting to the control and will wait to see what new way it will find to cause me pain next.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Update
 
My system has been stable for a couple of days now. I wish that I could say exactly what went wrong but it looks like it was a corrupt database and/or a firmware problem. After rebuilding the database it behaved well except that it was rebooting itself. After re-instaling the 5.3.0 firmware it has been behaving well and stable.
 
Without going into great detail I think that re-installing the firmware was the fix. While the firmware version is still 5.3.0 there are visible differences since I installed it a second time. It appears to me that Elk has changed the code without changing the version number.
 
Mike.
 
EDIT
I forgot to mention that even after rebuilding the database I had errant chiming going on and it was after I disconnected the 2way wireless that I finally got things back under my control. It was then that I re-installed the  firmware and got moving forward again.I have not yet re-connected the wireless.