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GC100 using serial to control Pioneer Receiver

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    #16
    Originally posted by mbrett View Post
    Hey Guys,

    any updates with this.. I still have not gotten my GC working with with Serial stuff yet.. Not that I have really spent that much time on it either, but I was just wondering if there will be easier solution any time soon.

    MB
    The easiest way is to redirect your serial port - I've had a few issues with my GC plugin and have corresponded on the helpdesk - the GC plug in is quite old and is known to need some work, however, the message I got is that the serial stuff will still need the same scripting interface. From my point of view, and on their advice, the COM port redirection using Lantronix (v3) is the easiest way to use GC with serial connections. Let me know if you need any help getting it set up - it takes a bit to get working, but once it is it is reliable.

    Jon

    Comment


      #17
      Originally posted by mbrett View Post
      Hey Ken,

      I am very impressed by your list of equipment being controlled by serial, and embarrased at the same time.

      Any thoughts to devloping a generic serial plugin that would utilize a database so that the user can enter the data for any device?

      I would love some help and guidance on getting this done.

      thanks
      Hi Michael,

      Sorry for the late reply. I must have missed the notification email.

      Anyway, I looked into writing a generic serial plug-in awhile back and instead decided just to work on a generic serial script and make the script available to anyone who wants to use it. Making a plug-in that configures a device based on a database would be a lot of work and would be very sensitive to protocol syntax, etc. Another problem with a plug-in is it limits the user's ability to "tweek" the serial communication to fit the particular device or protocol so the user doesn't get to learn anything so they have little troubleshooting ability if something goes wrong.

      When Jon posted the GC plug-in documentation I looked into writing a serial script to control devices via the GC-100 but it turns out it would be almost the same as the scripts I have now but it would use GC plug-in calls so it would only work with the serial ports on a GC. Jon's method of using a comport re-director and making the serial port on the GC-100 look like a standard comport appears to be working well for him so I'd suggest you try to get that setup and working.

      I can certainly help you with any serial scripting you want to do.

      Ken
      "if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." --Sir Isaac Newton (1675)

      Comment


        #18
        Hey, Its me again.

        I am ready to throw this GC thingy out the window.. For the life of me I cant figure out the com port piece of it.

        1) I installed the lantronix software on my homeseer pc
        2) I setup the ip address of the GC with a port of 4999
        3) I copied the Pioneer.txt file to homeseer scripts directory.
        4) I setup a few devices r1,r2,r3 etc.
        Now WHAT?

        and did I miss anything above?

        Comment


          #19
          Michael,

          I'm not the lantronix expert, that would be Jon, but maybe I can give you enough to keep you moving along.

          When you installed the lantronix software did it create a comport? Is so, make a note of the comport number. If not, we'll need Jon's help in figuring out what the comport number is.

          Once you've got a comport number, edit the Pioneer.txt script and look for a line the contains "Const port = x" and change "x" to the comport number for the lantronix.

          Then look for a line the contains " Const hc = "x" " and set that to your housecode. It looks like you've created some devices with "r".

          You should then be able to create an event that runs a script and run this immediate script command: &hs.RunEx "Pioneer.txt","SendCommand", "?P"

          You should see a response of either PWR0 or PWR1 in the HS log.

          Let me know if this helps,
          Ken

          PS. You should take a look at the thread that Jon and I worked on a couple of weeks ago as it has a lot of the details in it.
          "if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." --Sir Isaac Newton (1675)

          Comment


            #20
            Originally posted by mbrett View Post
            Hey, Its me again.

            I am ready to throw this GC thingy out the window.. For the life of me I cant figure out the com port piece of it.

            1) I installed the lantronix software on my homeseer pc
            2) I setup the ip address of the GC with a port of 4999
            3) I copied the Pioneer.txt file to homeseer scripts directory.
            4) I setup a few devices r1,r2,r3 etc.
            Now WHAT?

            and did I miss anything above?
            Hi mbrett,

            My first question would be have you ticked the RAW mode setting in Lantronix prefs? You need to do this for it to work. Also, are you using the v3 not the v4 - I could not get v4 to work and GC recommend v3.

            When you launch HS, do you get a dialog saying 'Opening COM port etc etc'

            If you do, then I suggest that you refer to the thread where kenm was guiding me on getting the COM link working and we make a simple event to 'Open COM port to Pioneer' and 'Close COM port to Pioneer'. This should confirm that the computer is actually opening the COM port and talking to the receiver.

            Try this and let us know the results

            Jon

            Comment


              #21
              Yippie Frickin Skippie...

              I got a response!!!! I got a power on reply...

              after probably close to 20 times installing and uninstalling and reinstalling, and playing, and pokeing, and tweaking, and everything else I could think of. I then reluctantly decided to make the final sacrifice, and read the instructions.... NO WAY!!! YUP I DID IT!!

              and... within 5 minutes I realized that I didn't have .Net 1.1 installed. I swear I thought it had been prior, actually it was installed up until 6 weeks ago until I had to reinstall all of the software on my vista machine.

              So as of 5:30am EST I can officially say it worked... but then I had to come to work.. Cant wait to leave and tinker some more... I also bought the GC-IRL so thats my next thing to dick with!

              thanks for the help and support... next time I promise to read the instructions first.

              MB

              Comment


                #22
                Originally posted by mbrett View Post
                Yippie Frickin Skippie...

                I got a response!!!! I got a power on reply...

                after probably close to 20 times installing and uninstalling and reinstalling, and playing, and pokeing, and tweaking, and everything else I could think of. I then reluctantly decided to make the final sacrifice, and read the instructions.... NO WAY!!! YUP I DID IT!!

                and... within 5 minutes I realized that I didn't have .Net 1.1 installed. I swear I thought it had been prior, actually it was installed up until 6 weeks ago until I had to reinstall all of the software on my vista machine.

                So as of 5:30am EST I can officially say it worked... but then I had to come to work.. Cant wait to leave and tinker some more... I also bought the GC-IRL so thats my next thing to dick with!

                thanks for the help and support... next time I promise to read the instructions first.

                MB
                Quite a rush eh?
                GC has taken more of my time than any other aspect of HS to date, but its working fine now.
                Jon

                Comment


                  #23
                  so how can I poll which device is currently selected?
                  How do I access all of the other features that are not included in the basic 4, (power, volume, mute, function)?
                  The script seems to be very limited if this is all that it does.

                  Comment


                    #24
                    mbrett,

                    Not sure if you have the latest version of the script - but I added all the function modes. You can send a command to the receiver to access just about every function on the device - I think everything you can do with a finger can be done in the script - you access this via the command function in the script, and then the device replies with a response. I made a device to monitor 'Status', 'Power', 'Mute'. I will post the updated Pioneer script tomorrow

                    Jon

                    Comment


                      #25
                      tomorrow???

                      I think I will die of curiosity before then.

                      thanks I am looking forward to it.

                      now how do I start my own script for a panasonic projector?

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Hi Michael,

                        Here's a template to get you started. The first thing you'll need to do is get the protocol doc for your projector. If you post it here I can give you some pointers on modifying the generic template to match the comm parameters for your projector.

                        Also, you may want to start a new thread in a different forum since we aren't really talking about GC plug-in programming anymore.

                        Let me know where you start the thread so I can help you out.

                        Ken
                        Attached Files
                        "if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." --Sir Isaac Newton (1675)

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Hey Ken,

                          thanks for the offer to help.. here is the document for my Panasonic PT-AE2000.

                          In the meantime I will play with it as well

                          MB
                          Attached Files

                          Comment


                            #28
                            So I have had some time now to play with the Pioneer script and it seems to work great for me... HOWEVER, I am having some problems with the responces from the device that are 3 letter replys such as "PWR" it dosent seem to work for me.. I wonder if my protocol is diffrent from yours as I see most of your replys are 2 letters. Also I found that your device function was "Z3" where on mine it is XXFN.. I made a slight change and now it works..

                            I have attached my rs232 doc just in case.

                            Also I found Jons most recent script (I think) from the other thread dated Jan,18th. Please confirm this is accurate.

                            MB
                            Attached Files

                            Comment


                              #29
                              Hi MB,

                              At the top of the script is the model # of the receiver the script is based on. I've attached the protocol doc I used as a basis for the script. It's a VSX84-TSXi.

                              The reason I parsed using 2 char responses is one of efficiency. If you look at the protocol there are two and three character responses but none of the three character responses are duplicates if you only look at the first two chars. To further explain there is only "PWR" and not "PWT" or "PWZ" so it safe to parse based on "PW" since "PW" = "PWR". Otherwise, the parser code would have to look at the 1st char, then the 2nd, then the 3rd, etc. which just makes the parser code more complicated.

                              Hope this helps,
                              Ken

                              PS. I'll have a look at the projector protocol doc at lunchtime.
                              Attached Files
                              "if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." --Sir Isaac Newton (1675)

                              Comment


                                #30
                                Hi MB,

                                Didn't get a chance to look the projector doc until just a little while ago. This protocol may be a little trickier to script than the Pioneer. Sending messages should be pretty easy although we'll have to modify the SendCommand sub a bit to account for the STX and ETX characters they want on the front and backend of the command. The part that may be harder is the response messages. It doesn't look like they use any type of termination character which means we can't use the "strings" mode and the callback function when a termination character is received. We'll have to do some trial and error to see what we get back from the projector but I don't really like to do that too much because you usually have to power cycle the unit a couple of times since it can get "hung up" when you send it bad command sequences. Also, it looks like they send the same response back for more than one command 0, 1, 2, etc. which means we'll have to keep track of the last command sent so we know what to do with the response data.

                                I'm traveling Friday-Monday so I should be able to get a little time on the plane to think about it and come up with some options.

                                I'll be in touch,
                                Ken
                                "if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." --Sir Isaac Newton (1675)

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