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hollis
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| Posted: February 19 2002 at 01:33 | IP Logged
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I don't know if I should post in the general or bug forum, but here it goes.
Your workaround to send phony commands to the CM11A hourly seems to have eliminated PowerHome crashes. Just the same, I was wanting to do a "hard" reboot every night. Ideally I would like it to work even if PowerHome were crashed.
My approach was to have a X10 appliance module connected to my computer and program the CM11A to run a "fast macro" (i.e. stored in CM11A memory) every morning at around 5am. The macro would first send a command to PowerHome (e.g. P12/Off). If PowerHome is active, it will gracefully get out of Windows 95 (I have it restart in MS-DOS mode) when it receives the P12/Off command. One minute later the CM11A fast macro would turn off the computer module and then one minute later turn it on again (my computer has a feature to return to the power state - computer on or off - before power interruption when power is restored). So even if my computer is locked, I'll get a reboot. The computer would then boot up fresh running PowerHome (which is part of my Start Up).
Sounds great in theory, but when I tried to implement, I found that PowerHome and CM11A fast macros don't communicate well with one another. If I have a fast macro set to something (e.g. P11/Off), PowerHome will fail to recognize whenever that command is executed. I look in the log at it reads the P11/Off command as only P{Off} (not P11 P{Off} as is the case when there is no fast macro conflict).
Also, if I try to send a command via PowerHome using Send Keys (e.g. {x10+P+11+0}{x10+P+103+0} = P11/Off), this will not trigger the fast macro set to P11/Off in the CM11A memory.
It appears that the CM11A "steals" the commands before PowerHome can read them when there is a fast macro set for that code sequence, and CM11A can not interpret PowerHome X10-out commands.
Have you experienced this before and is there a workaround to get CM11A fast macros created via ActiveHome and stored in CM11A memory to work together with PowerHome?
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dhoward
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| Posted: February 20 2002 at 09:33 | IP Logged
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Hollis,
Ive never tried using fast macros within the CM11A so Im not sure what to expect. If the log is only showing a P{Off} and not an address command, my guess is that the CM11A is not sending the command to PowerHome. My limited understanding of the fast macro capability of the CM11A is that the fast macros must be triggered either by time or by the powerline and not by the serial port. Also, I dont believe when a fast macro fires, that the resulting signal is sent to the serial port, only out the powerline. Im ordering a second CM11A so that I can start doing some testing and see what I can turn up. If my current understanding is correct though, nothing will be able to be done about it. A possible way to work around having PowerHome trigger the fast macro would be to use a CM17a to send the command via RF, an RF transceiver to pick it up and put it on the powerline and the CM11A to ultimately fire. I dont know how you would solve the receiving of a fast macro unless you had a second CM11A or something similar. A possibility would be to have a two way lamp module or even an RR501 transceiver with status request. Have the CM11A fast macro trigger a status request and then when the resulting Status on or status off is received by PowerHome, fire the appropriate trigger.
Dave.
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hollis
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| Posted: February 21 2002 at 11:41 | IP Logged
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Let me experiment more. Remember though that the goal here is to do a graceful shutdown before power-off, power-on of X10 module that regulates the power to the PowerHome computer if possible, but still to do a power-off, power-on resulting in a full reboot even if the PowerHome system is locked up.
Also you state that since PowerHome only recognizes P(On) it must be that the CM11A isn't sending the full signal. But what I am referring to is a signal sent by a remote PalmPad that seems to be "intercepted" by the CM11A somehow (?) such that PowerHome doesn't receive the full sequence, just the P(On) portion. Note also that this (the truncated command) is only experienced when it triggers a Fast Macro.
For example, P11 P(On) will be properly recognized by PowerHome when I execute this from the PalmPad. But if I define a fast macro in the CM11A to be triggered on P11, PowerHome no longer interprets P11/On from the PalmPad as P11 P(On), but only as P(On).
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hollis
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| Posted: February 28 2002 at 00:43 | IP Logged
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Since I couldn't get this to work (for now), I took another approach. I'll have a trigger on PowerHome to gracefully shutdown the system at 6am and then have a timed event stored in the CM11A to turn off the computer at 6:01 and then turn back on at 6:02. This accomplishes what I want, although I would like to minimize the down-time (over 2 minutes this way). Having PowerHome talking properly with the CM11A could minimize down-time to ~1 minute.
But one more thing is needed here. I need to make sure the time on my CM11A is always sync'ed up with the PowerHome computer. My thought is to sync the times during my daily midnight macro.
It appears the command to accomplish this is:
B6 Extended Code 02 3b
But how do I accomplish this in a macro (and with Send Keys while we're at it)? I found some reference in your documentation regarding the Send Key of extended commands ({x10+B+206+data?}) and would guess the macro would look something like:
x10-1 B 6
x10-1 B Dim (data???)
x10-1 B Exended Data
But I'm not sure of the order or the value I use for data.
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks! 
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dhoward
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| Posted: February 28 2002 at 13:28 | IP Logged
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Hollis,
Sorry its taken so long to respond, but have been working diligently on the next release. I only just got around to ordering the CM11A. Was waiting for X10 to give another discount voucher before ordering. Concerning the previous message...can you post what PowerHome gives as the raw received bytes in the eventlog?
Concerning the last message, PowerHome only currently updates the CM11A time when the CM11A requests it. I'll look into adding the capability to update the time at the user's request. Might not make it into this next release as it's pretty much wrapped up and just updating the manual and database upgrade utility.
Now the extended code...Ive looked all through the XTC798.DOC extended protocol documentation and cant find what you're referring to concerning the B6 extended code 02 3b command. I have never heard of any way to update the date/time of the CM11A through an extended command and only know of the way outlined within the protocol.doc distributed by X-10. Further, I dont see how it would be possible to embed the date and time within an extended command. It may be something new that Im not aware of and if you can tell me where it's documented, I can take a look at it.
Concerning the sending of extended commands...From within a macro, you would have a single line that looks something like: 10 X-10 1 B 6 Extended 571 for the above extended command. The 02 3b, assuming the format outlined in the XTC798.DOC of Data and Type/CMD is coded as follows: Convert the command to decimal and multiply by 256. Convert the type/cmd to decimal and add it to the data value you just calculated. This is 2h converted to 2 decimal * 256 equals 512. 3bh converted to 59 decimal added to 512 equals 571. This is handled automatically in the macro entry screen using the Extended Builder popup window from within the Sendkeys field when creating an extended X-10 command. The format for the sendkeys is the same: {x10-1+B+206+571}. Incidently, the command you've outlined assuming Im interpreting it correctly based upon the extended protocol documentation would instruct a two-way capable module at B6 to auto-acknowledge standard messages that alter the output state of the unit.
It's difficult to explain effectively and easier to see what Im talking about from within the PowerHome explorer. Let me know if anything concerning the extended commands makes sense or not. Also, if you can, post the raw received bytes when working with the fast macros so I can see if PowerHome is mis-interpreting something and I'll keep you posted when my CM11A arrives.
Dave.
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Topic: PowerHome talking with Fast Macros
