USB Pim - not working

[jjhdtv]

Hello. I have been playing around with HS3 and the spudUPB plugin and cannot get the plugin to communicate with my USB pim (simply automated).

The PIM does work with the Upstart program.

Is the plug-in compatible with the USB Pim or will I need a serial?
Is there a setting that I'm overlooking?. Help is greatly appreciated. thank you.

[spud]

could you set the log level to debug from the config page, and post your logs

on the manage page you need to choose the correct COM port to which your PIM is mapped to.
also make sure UPStart is closed before starting the plugin as only one program can access the PIM at the same time.

[jjhdtv]

start up log is attached

On the Manage page I only have the option for COM1. (Start up log indicates the PIM device is found)

Upstart program has been shut down prior to starting Homeseer

Thanks for your assistance,

[spud]

sorry for the delay

the logs may be misleading, but I don't think the plugin finds the PIM, as it never receives any answer.
if your USB PIM does not act a serial device, i.e appears as a virtual COM port on your computer, the plugin won't work with it.

you may want to try a USB to Serial converter, or buy a serial PIM.

[Pete]

Way long time ago I had an issue with the USB UPB PIM communications over a Digi Anywhere USB device.

I did start a dialog with SA regarding this issue. At the time they mentioned to me that it had to do with the USB drivers and having an adjustment made to said drivers.

This is unrelated to the above issue.

I do not think that I can put a USB to serial converter on the USB Pim and it will work. I do have multiple HAI and SA serial UPB PIMs to play with.

I do utilize the USB UPB PIM as my floater and can test it with your plugin if you want me too?

Thinking though an update or a separate USB UPB plugin would work?

[Uncle Michael]

It would also be useful to know if it works with the PCS USB PIM or not. I've been using the PCS PIM with the HS2 plug-in for several years with no problems.

[spud]

It would also be useful to know if it works with the PCS USB PIM or not. I've been using the PCS PIM with the HS2 plug-in for several years with no problems.

There isn't any code to communicate directly with a USB device in my plugin, so if your USB PIM doesn't appear as a virtual serial port in your system it won't work.

I can try to add support for USB PIM, but I would have to buy one first. What is the most commonly used USB PIM?

[Uncle Michael]

My PCS PIM behaves like a regular serial port and shows up as connected ot a com port, so I assumed it has an embeded serial to USB converter. In that case, do you expect it to work with your plug-in?

It may be that the SA USB PIM is the only 'real' USB interface.

[spud]

My PCS PIM behaves like a regular serial port and shows up as connected ot a com port, so I assumed it has an embeded serial to USB converter. In that case, do you expect it to work with your plug-in?

Then, yes I expect it to work with my plug-in
But of course the best way to be sure is to to try. Let me know how it goes if you do.

[Uncle Michael]

Thank you. That's good news. I'll take your word for now, and assume it will work. I don't plan to resume testing of HS3 until late next fall.

[Pete]

Checked on the UPB USB SA USB device driver with Nircmd's USB Device View today.

Its very generic with no mention of SA or UPB in it. I loaded up the UPB ID database for second test and did not see it.

I did notice too that the Upstart UPB drop down configuration connection pieces has a separate SA and PCS USB device.

[Horshu]

SAI USB

I've got a Simply Automated USB PIM and had tried to write a Windows service for running it via a scheduler several years back. I can share a bit of what I ran into with it, but I hit a wall. I took another look at it last week so I could hopefully get my front house lights sync'ed to the clock, but I think my PIM died after years of collecting dust (it now reports a version of 0.0, so it can't be programmed any more)
This particular PIM does not AFAIK use a virtual serial port, which is why it's always an anomaly getting it to work, although the writers of UPStart could. My recollection was that the data always kind of looked like UPB packets, but not quite, as if the USB protocol was inserting a lot of checksum bytes or something.
I spoke with the tech support dept at Simply Automated for a bit about it, but the guy who built the USB controller wasn't there any more, and no on at the time knew how it worked at that level. I remember there being something about having to use only pulse or message mode...maybe pulse mode works more like serial or something.
I've got a bunch of packet captures from turning my lights on and off via UPStart if anyone wants to take a stab at decoding it (for instance, turning lights on or off results in 18 different packets, only differing by maybe 20 pairs of bytes out of a hundred or so).
Anyway, since my controller died, I had to order a new one and paid up for the PulseWorx, so none of this will be an issue any more I hope.

[Pete]

Welcome to the Homeseer forum Horshu!

Yup; thinking that the SA USB UPB PIM was using a propietary USB driver where as the PCS USB is just using that FTDI methodology to convert USB to serial.

That said here keep the SA USB UPB PIM as a laptop Upstart roaming floater. I have the serial SA PIM for Homeseer and two HAI UPB PIMs set up today (one for the HAI OPII panel) and another floater connected to a Quatech 4 port serial server on the LAN.

I am thinking that today the Homeseer plugin does work with the SA USB PIM and the PCS USB PIM and the other two serial UPB PIMs.

I have had good luck with PulseWorx switches, PIMs and phase couplers. They do have the better/longest warranty between the three vendors of UPB.

I do have an HAI UPB repeater in place today though.