Jandy Aqualink rs Serial Adapter

[Captain Caveman]

Does anybody know why the Jandy rs serial adapter cost so much. Is it actually doing anything besides providing rs485 to rs232 conversion?

Will this product or something similiar do the same thing link to product?

 

[az1324]

For the same reason all their stuff is so expensive?

It does do translation but take for example the GE Security RS232 adapter which does the same thing for $50.

I have been holding off on buying it also in hopes of finding an alternative.

It matters if the RS485 or RS422 protocol they are using is encrypted or uses nonstandard checksums.

If not, it could be easy to decode and build a custom adapter.

Also I think the Jandy PC Interface has been discontinued and can be purchased for <$200 now. This is because the software was never updated past windows98. I'm pretty sure it is also a serial interface, but I don't know if the commands are the same.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Until somebody comes out with a less expensive adapter I will just tell Mr. Homeowner to deal with the Jandy reseller and we will just integrate with it.

 

[LaurentR]

Sorry to hijack the thread...

I am looking at retrofitting my pool with a Jandy control system, and of course the serial adapter. The install manual says that it's compatible with the all-button and one-touch systems. Is it compatible with the PDA systems too? There is some random text on the PDA that says you can't control a bunch of stuff including home automation (whatever that means?), but is the control that comes with the PDA compatible with the serial adapter?

Laurent

 

[RandyKnight]

Sorry to hijack the thread...

I am looking at retrofitting my pool with a Jandy control system, and of course the serial adapter. The install manual says that it's compatible with the all-button and one-touch systems. Is it compatible with the PDA systems too? There is some random text on the PDA that says you can't control a bunch of stuff including home automation (whatever that means?), but is the control that comes with the PDA compatible with the serial adapter?

Laurent

I didn't install anything besides the brain and the serial adapter when I put my pool in so I can't say for sure, but my understanding is that the PDA, control panel for in the house, and the serial adapter are all "clients" to the brain. And you can have multiple of them. Panel in the house plus PDA for example.

I just went with the serial control to start with and don't have anything else ... use my HA system to control everything about the pool.

If you use HomeSeer, Barry Gordon has a great free plugin for it. Once I found that I didn't even mess with connecting it via the Elk. But it seems like the manual that came with it had all the RS-232 ASCII commands as well so it wouldn't be hard to control it from the M1 (or really anything).

 

[az1324]

I didn't install anything besides the brain and the serial adapter when I put my pool in so I can't say for sure, but my understanding is that the PDA, control panel for in the house, and the serial adapter are all "clients" to the brain. And you can have multiple of them. Panel in the house plus PDA for example.

You can't add a PDA controller to the other systems (You have to use the AquaPalm.) and I don't think you can add normal control panels to the PDA system.

Those aholes at Jandy love hardcoding the disabling/enabling of features into their chips so that you can't even add an extra relay to your system without changing the chip.

 

[klindy]

I didn't install anything besides the brain and the serial adapter when I put my pool in so I can't say for sure, but my understanding is that the PDA, control panel for in the house, and the serial adapter are all "clients" to the brain. And you can have multiple of them. Panel in the house plus PDA for example.

You can't add a PDA controller to the other systems (You have to use the AquaPalm.) and I don't think you can add normal control panels to the PDA system.

Those aholes at Jandy love hardcoding the disabling/enabling of features into their chips so that you can't even add an extra relay to your system without changing the chip.

I recently finished my Jandy installation using a RS-8 All button, LX heater and AquaPure. The Jandy serial adapter was easy to get working but I was disappointed with the functionality available through the system.

For example, with the Aquapure Chlorine Generator it says the generator is "fully" controllable with the RS-8 control The problem is it "works" through the control but you still need to use the front buttons on the generator power/control unit to adjust the chlorine rate. If it was fully controllable you'd think that you'd be able to adjust it using the serial adapter too (including getting the salinity, temp at the sensor, etc.)

Likewise, controlling the LX heater (their top model) through the serial adapter is "barely functional". You can turn it on/off and adjust the set point (for both the pool and the spa) but it would be nice to have some indicator that it's running and/or send some error code if it's got a problem. Also, there is a temp sensor in the heater itself which is not available through the RS-8 (or serial). The system uses the temp probe you have to install 'externally' and connect to the RS-8. So now I have a pool/spa control which has 3 different temperature sensors (1 'externally installed' and 2 that are part of other Jandy equipment) and the only one that matters it the one that's 'externally installed'. Fortunately they seem to be fairly close in how they read but I'd rather use one (or more) of the embedded temp sensors rather than rely on one which has the wires exposed to nature (and whatever squirrels, etc. there are).

Point is the functionality is workable but hardly completely thorough. I expected a bit more especially since the serial adapter is as expensive as it is.

Incidently, I'm using CQC as my home automation setup and CQC does have a complete Jandy driver as well.