Hyperterminal DDE Server from DSC alarm output?

[Macca]

Hi Guys,

We have just bought a new premises for work and it has a DSC alarm system with a COM port interface card in it. Being in the trade, we hooked up the laptop and fired up good old hyperterminal....

We were pleased to see that we could receive codes such as this:

00332
0032A
00130
00128
00231
00229
and so on.....

The codes effectively show the zones openiog and closing when the PIR's are triggered.... also other time stamp and arm/disarm codes come up.

What we would like to do is take the data from Hyperterminal and export it in realtime to Excel to show how many times the zones opened closed and when. When the system armed/disarmed, went into alarm etc...

We are electricians/comms techs, so cable and hardware is OK, but the software is not really our strong point. The alarm company can sell us a software app, but it is ludicrously expensive and we don't need it that badly. But do you think the other idea is possible? Is there a cheap way to get the live hyperterminal data into excel or something similar? It seems we are halfway there already

Appreciate any help - in the meantime we will keep googling...

 

[electron]

If you really need this to be viewed real time in Excel, then your only option is to write code in VBA (the VB based scripting language used by Office components). Here are a few links that should get you started:

http://www.pencomdesign.com/support/relay_...are_example.htm
http://www.thescarms.com/vbasic/commio.aspx

If you aren't a programmer, then I would give up on the real time viewer, and focus on getting the serial output dumped into a CSV file, which can be imported into Excel.

EventGhost is a free app which allows you to interact with serial devices, so if this is simple ASCII, then you could use it to capture the data (and even trigger actions based on the response).

 

[batwater]

Check this out, it was originally done for the now defunct PC5401 and mostly works with the IT-100, it might serve your purposes...
-Ben

edit: forgot to mention, you will have to restart the app every once in a while as the counters are integers and overflow. Data is stored in an access database I believe.

 

[electron]

BTW, the link you posted doesn't work.

 

[Macca]

Hi Ben - can you provide the correct link? We pulled the card out of the DSC unit today and it is indeed a IT-100 interface card, so this application could be useful if it can be found

Dan - fair to say we would struggle with writing VBS code, we are ok with the cables and nuts/bolts, but writing code could be a bridge to far! The thing is, I can see all the alarm status codes being sent to Hyperterminal and we have worked out what 15 or so fo the codes mean just by turning alarm functions on and off. If we could just cpature those codes in realtime and log them, thats all we would need....

Thanks for the advice guys.

[post="0"]Check this out[/post], it was originally done for the now defunct PC5401 and mostly works with the IT-100, it might serve your purposes...
-Ben

edit: forgot to mention, you will have to restart the app every once in a while as the counters are integers and overflow. Data is stored in an access database I believe.

 

[Macca]

Should also add that we have hyperterminal saving to a text file but this is only able to be accessed by Excel once hyperterminal has paused sending data to the file.

 

[electron]

I still think EventGhost might be worth a look. Here is a free serial data logger, maybe it won't lock the file:

http://www.com-port-monitoring.com/datalogger.html

 

[batwater]

BTW, the link you posted doesn't work.

Doh, selected the wrong link thingy, 1st post updated with correct hyperlink.

 

[Macca]

Hey Guys,

Batwater - that app looks perfect for what we need....

BUT....

We installed it and it works sweet, talks nicely to the IT-100, but returns this error in a popup box onscreen:

DSC PC5401 00032 Time NOV 14 7:29p is not a valid integer for field 'Data"

Any ideas lads? Looks like an error in the database write as it will occur after every alarm PIR trigger is received. These error boxes just continue to mount up on screen until you manually close them... it then repeats again...

This is a bummer - as this looks to be perfect for what we need.

Dan - have installed the program you recommended as well - this also works well, and we can record direct to text file which is unlocked. Good progress, now we just need to work out how to have excel extract the codes and log them in boxes based on each code....

Any help on this much appreciated.

 

[batwater]

Hey Guys,

Batwater - that app looks perfect for what we need....

BUT....

We installed it and it works sweet, talks nicely to the IT-100, but returns this error in a popup box onscreen:

DSC PC5401 00032 Time NOV 14 7:29p is not a valid integer for field 'Data"

Any ideas lads? Looks like an error in the database write as it will occur after every alarm PIR trigger is received. These error boxes just continue to mount up on screen until you manually close them... it then repeats again...

This is a bummer - as this looks to be perfect for what we need.

Dan - have installed the program you recommended as well - this also works well, and we can record direct to text file which is unlocked. Good progress, now we just need to work out how to have excel extract the codes and log them in boxes based on each code....

Any help on this much appreciated.

Let me see what I can find out...
-Ben

 

[Macca]

Let me see what I can find out...
-Ben
[/quote]


No problem Ben - I'll await your response with fingers crossed

 

[batwater]

Let me see what I can find out...
-Ben

No problem Ben - I'll await your response with fingers crossed

No go. Developer has not updated and does not appear to have any plans to accommodate the IT-100 message format changes / additions, sorry.

I know you mentioned that you are not developers but you might try this thread and search for IT-100 on the page. Might be too involved but it does involve using perl to read the IT-100. I found it by googling dsc "it-100" perl

-Ben