Garage Door Status

I have a customer who would like to remotely see the status of his garage doors.

The doors can be opened or closed via cbus or remote.

The client wants to be able to check they are closed.

The doors have a Reed switch on them connected to the Cbus Home safe alarm panel.

easy I thought just get status from the zone.

No so easy...

there is a turn on a group address when unsealed but nothing when sealed.

I thought I would look at the security app as this has the zone sealed and unsealed messages but then I found these don't come when the system is not armed.

Ahhhhhhhhh


then I then had dejavu and remembered this I posted years ago.

http://www.cbusforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6047


Did my wish list every get any were further than a post on the forum ??
Looks like I have to add DPDT relay and a bus coupler what a load of over engineering...

Can this be added to the Christmas list ?

 

Hey Charlie..

I have a 5400/16CB panel with wiser and whethers its armed, monitoring or disarmed the zones via the security app and wiser application highlight red for active and green for nonactive as people walk through or trigger the zones, including doors..

Only prob i have currently is that it crashes agter a few seconds of using the security widget..

 

are you sure they work when disarmed.

 

Watching it change right now as people walk around the house..

Interestingly when connected to wifi and wiser it happily shows zone changes no matter the alarm state.. But in 3G mode it only shows zone changes when alarm is in monitor or armed status..

 

Was this by programming it with the unsealed or sealed states whether armed or disarmed? I did it this way but only shows the status of the zone when armed. And not to hijack the thread but can you disarm the alarm when it has gone into alarm? Some reason it only disarms when in the "arming state"

The wiser iPhone app crashes but not with the wiserHD app.

 

Can some one explain how this is working ?? When disarmed and looking at the toolkit log I see nothing. but when armed I see the seal and unseal messages on the security application in the toolkit log.

What messages is the wiser widget responding to. Why does it work on wifi and not 3g ??

Charles

 

anyone got any ideas ??

Did my wish list every get any were further than a post on the forum ??

Charles

 

I got around this problem by making a TCP connection from a Colour C Touch to my Ness M1 and writing a bit of logic to decode the zone status messages. If your security panel has a network or RS232 interface you could probably do a similar thing.

 

the RS232 port has the cbus interface in it !!

 

You only need the Tx side. Stick a Y lead in it.

 

are you saying the serial port is sending other data the cbus interface does not understand out he serial port. ??

 

Yes. Generally the serial port transmits all status messages and the CBus interface only passes a sub set of them.

I just hunted up my old 540016CB C-Bus option documentation and it says it's possible to configure the panel to transmit zone status changes even when the panel is disarmed, but unfortunately doesn't say how (It doesn't recommend it however as PIRs can easily flood the CBus network). It does say, however, you can map up to 16 status messages onto CBus group addresses and these will be triggered even when the panel is disarmed, so that might be worth trying.

I don't have a copy of the serial protocol the homesafe, but I believe its a copy of the Ness D16 which I have the serial protocol document for and it definitely transmits zone status changes both armed and disarmed, and as the protocol is in ascii you could always plug a monitor into it a see what you get.

 

I assume you mean this document
http://www2.clipsal.com/cis/__data/page/428/540016CB_CBus_installation_supplement2.pdf


the exact words are "It is possible to configure the panel to send C-Bus commands each time a zone is unsealed (triggered), even when the unit is disarmed. "

and it does this my issue is I want the "Sealed Messages" when disarmed

is it 9600 N 8 1

I have a PAC next to the alarm and could connect alarm serial TX to the RX here.

by the time I have finished I could have written the fix for the Clipsal product for them (if I hand the development env)
Who has the source for this Clipsal or Ness ??

 

After talking to CIS tech support today. basically a ness product CIS don't have development input.


I rang NESS and they tell me they do support sealed and unsealed messages
using the 106-125

http://nesscorporation.com/ness-minicentral-two-way-c-bus-interface.html

this board supports the D16x rev 7.3 and above

I checked the version on the Clipsal D16x and the chip has a sticker saying v1.8 so looks like I can not upgrade..

Why has Clipsal not moved with the times and updated their product to the current firmware/boards ??

With firmware this old looks like I need to return the product now and in the future buy from NESS.

 

Why has Clipsal not moved with the times and updated their product to the current firmware/boards ??

Just not enough hours in the day with the resources you have ?

 

i had troubles with the newer product in regards to setting arm and disarm scenes. they would not trigger at all.

 

Hey Charlie,

Prob a bit late now but I got around this issue by wiring the door reed to two zones - one wired as N.O. and the other wired as N.C. I also used a couple of diodes to keep the zones isolated. Working fine. The only thing is one of the zones is always 'unsealed' but as long as auto exclude is enabled (which it is be default) this doesn't cause any issues.

 

clever idea. can you tell me how you wired the diodes