Fire Cracker SW interface not working properly

Innovative · Post by **Innovative** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 5:42 pm

Everything seems to work fine except when sending an actual command to the FC, there is no transmission. States do change in the SW. If I manually change the on/off state in the devices section I would need to hit the return key about 20 times. I adjusted the com port settings in my computer to 19k from 9k but this only gets me to hit return 10 times. I'm running WinME @ 333Mhz w/160Mb of ram, and zonealarm firewall (which I turned off.), housecode setting is "D". I like this SW, hope I can get it going.

Post by **ScottBot** » Thu Dec 25, 2003 9:54 am

Does the FC work with the software (fake remote) that comes with it, or does it show the same symptoms?

Scott

Innovative · Post by **Innovative** » Thu Dec 25, 2003 1:09 pm

It works perfectly w/ fake remote.

Post by **ScottBot** » Thu Dec 25, 2003 9:19 pm

Try setting the baud rate to 4800.

Scott

Innovative · Post by **Innovative** » Sat Dec 27, 2003 2:11 am

I tried it and it did not make a difference. I went ahead and moved HB and FC to another computer running winme @ 400mhz with no luck either. I get the same delay in response. It doesn't seem to be any repeatable response in the requested action. Some times it will respond after a couple of clicks and sometimes I have to wait for about 10-20 seconds while holding down the return key. The FC's fake remote is responsive on this machine too. I would appreciate any other suggestions.

Thanks,

Bob

Post by **ScottBot** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 9:59 pm

Bob,

Sorry about the slow response time (mine and the firecracker). My family keeps me very busy over the holidays, so bear with me.

I was able to reproduce this problem on another machine of mine. I've been looking into the difference between the fake remote data transmission and mine. They are surprisingly very different. I guess I had a different interpretation of their control spec.

I hope to have something new for you to try soon.

Scott

Post by **ScottBot** » Mon Dec 29, 2003 10:24 am

I've made a change to the plugin that uses a different approach to the same protocol. It seems to work on two of my machines (one that it didn't work on before). Let me know if you have any luck.

To install the new plugin:

Stop HouseBot.
Download the new plugin from here.
Unzip the DLL and copy it to the ...\HouseBot\Plugins\Interfaces directory. You may want to save a copy of the old DLL before overwriting it.
Restart HouseBot and see if it works any better.

Scott

Innovative · Post by **Innovative** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 5:15 pm

ScottBot:

Happy New Year. Thanks for the reply. I tried the new driver, but it did not work. So I fired up a little program called portmon. The old driver and the new driver work while portmon is running but not when it's not. I tried this experiment on two different machines with the same results. The only interesting thing that I noticed was that portmon did not record anyhing when I run the Firecracker SW. I thought this was unusual. Presently i'm running HB with portmon in the background. Fortunatly I don't have to have portmon recording, so it justs sits there. I can keep this setup for now since sometime in the future i'll probably move to a CM11.

Thanks, Bob

MediaStorm · Post by **MediaStorm** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 6:12 am

Innovative wrote:ScottBot:
Happy New Year. Thanks for the reply. I tried the new driver, but it did not work. So I fired up a little program called portmon. The old driver and the new driver work while portmon is running but not when it's not. I tried this experiment on two different machines with the same results. The only interesting thing that I noticed was that portmon did not record anyhing when I run the Firecracker SW. I thought this was unusual. Presently i'm running HB with portmon in the background. Fortunatly I don't have to have portmon recording, so it justs sits there. I can keep this setup for now since sometime in the future i'll probably move to a CM11.
Thanks, Bob

Move to the SmartHome PowerLinc USB instead of the CM11. You'll be much happier and save a few bucks (and a serial port) in the process.

Post by **ScottBot** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 10:48 am

Bob,

PortMon is the program that I used to compare the Firecracker SW protocol to mine. So you should be able to see both applications trace data using PortMon. I have noticed on some occasions that PortMon will not attach to a port correctly and has to be restarted (or maybe the system needs restarted, I don't remember).

After HB loads, check the "System Log" in the "Logging" node of the tree view and check the version number of the X10 Firecracker module. It should be version 2.0. It's odd that both versions perform the same for you. Make sure the old version is not still in the same directory as the old one.

It's also odd that they only work with portmon running. Generally this would lead me to believe that PortMon is effecting the timing enough to make it work. However, having PortMon running would slow down the data flow, which is opposite from the effect I would think it would have.

Also, I agree with MediaStorm. The PowerLinc USB is superior to the CM11.

Scott

Innovative · Post by **Innovative** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 7:28 pm

Scott:

Thanks for the heads-up on the PowerLinc, I think i'll move to that instead of the cm11. I tried restarting the machine and I still get the same results. Works with portmon and doesn't without portmon. I can run it this way until I move on to a more elaborate setup.

Thanks,

Bob

kilowatt · Post by **kilowatt** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 5:52 pm

Scot,

I am new to HouseBot but am quite impressed by what I've been able to do so far.

I am also having trouble with the firecracker CM17A device. It seems if I set a unit code higher than 8 the firecracker sends the unit code - 8. For example if I try to set A9-on the firecracker interface sends A1-on.

Thanks for a great program.

Mark

Post by **ScottBot** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 9:58 am

Mark,

What version of Housebot are you using?

kilowatt · Post by **kilowatt** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 10:23 am

Scot,

I'm using version 1.63. I tested this on two different computers and see the same thing. If I watch the "Composite Property" returned from my CM11A it confirmes that the wrong code is sent from the Fire Cracker device.

Mark

Post by **ScottBot** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 9:55 am

Mark,

Try this one. To install it...

Stop HouseBot.
Unzip the new plugin and copy it to the ...\HouseBot\Plugins\Interfaces directory. You may want to backup the old file before copying over it.
Start HouseBot and let me know if this works for you.