Protocol

The Crestron and AMX interfaces are presently being worked on.

Enjoy!

Scott,
Can't open the Protocol page. Says it needs the Korean language support.

Looks great Scott!

I am sure there will be many geek threads for this one..

Anyone doing anything with this yet? I don't have my equipment so I can't

But it would be good to get some feedback from anyone that does..

Has anyone been able to control the 990 with the serial protocol? I've been attempting to control with the MLGenericSerial plugin for MainLobby, but have had no luck. I can't tell from the protocol documentation whether each command must be preceded with the system ID (0x8345), nor can I tell whether each command must end with a carriage return or other symbol.

I've tried simply sending commands, but get no response from the unit. I know it is connected, b/c I can see data being returned when I operate the unit with the remote, but I can't get it to respond to any data that I send.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks,
Ken

With the help of a knowledgeable guy over at the MainLobby (Cinemar) forum, I was able to figure out how to send discrete commands to the Outlaw in hexidecimal. The trick was in figuring out how to add the "checksum" at the end of each command line.

For example:

Power On is 83 45 01 C9 in hex, where 83 45 is the system ID and precedes every command. 01 is the "power on" command, and C9 is the checksum.

To calculate the checksum, you convert each hex value to its decimal equivalent and add them up, and then express the sum in hex.

This gives you 131+69+1 = 201.

201 in hex is C9.

So the command is written 83 45 01 C9.

For standby, it would 83 45 02 with a checksum of CA (202 in hex).

For "Tuner" input select, it would 83 45 03 CB.

If you have a terminal program, or any other type of program (such as the Girder serial plugin) that can send hex to the serial port, then you can send discrete commands directly to the 990.

IMO, serial control is infinitely more robust than IR control.

The next challenge is to figure out how to work with the data being returned by the 990 through its serial port. This will allow your control device (Creston, AMX, HTPC with MainLobby, etc.) to know the state of the unit, regardless of whether the unit's state has been changed by a sent command, the remote, or by someone turning the dial. It allows cool things like displaying the current volume level on your touchscreen controllers . .. .

If there's interest, let me know .. . .

Great that you got as far as you did....

I for one am absolutely interested....I do custom installs, integrated with home automation.

RS232 control and RS232 feedback would be invaluable for MANY installations, and IMO, for many users once they realize how much flexibility it adds to the 990.

I am anxiously awaiting further clarification on a code control list that is indeed usable, as well as any feedback sent by the 990.

Keep up the superb efforts!!!

Harris

I was able to verify all of the discrete control commands tonight. So it is definitely possible to execute one-way control through the serial port.

But parsing the return data will be a formidable task, b/c it appears that the return data is variable in length. It may require some advance scripting to compare the return data to known values or to convert the return data to ascii or and parse out the meaningful stuff.

Such scripting is beyond me, but someone familiar with Lua scripting in Girder could probably handle it, or perhaps someone with Crestron or AMX programming experience.

Anyone care to help? I'll post an inquiry over at the Proximis Girder forum to see if I can generate some interest there.

- Ken

Ken,

I, and no doubt others, very much
appreciate your efforts...

Hope someone responds with something tangible!

Any chance that you could explain in simpler terms the conversion process, OR perhaps post the converted actual 232 commands for each discrete code (as per your example)? I seem to have brain freeze following the conversion technique ;-)

Thanks,
Harris