I spent hours yesterday trying to communicate with my DSC alarm, both from HS3 with Spud's plugin and an EVL4 and via DSC's DLS5 programming application. I got there eventually but I thought I would mention a few things.
I bought DSC's own serial cable and was using a TrendNet Serial/USB connector and a USB extension cable of about 10 ft. The DLS software was connecting to the port no problem, but I just couldn't get it to talk to the panel. Of course, many variables there, with a non-recommended serial adaptor, USB extension etc. I ended up updating the Prolific drivers, moving the panel from my test location, closer to the PC to remove the extension and playing with the baud rate on the port, in DLS and in the panel. Nothing worked.
For the EVL4 I was getting a lot of comms errors from the plugin. It would work some of the time, but then froze and disconnected and wouldn't reconnect. It was also complaining of dupe IPs on the network which seems to be a common problem, according to Google.
Eventually I found a reference to some panels needing 'other' commincators disconnected to allow the DLS software to connect, though it was more like "if your panel requires it". I guess the pc1864 does. As soon as I powered off the EVL4 I was able to communicate with the panel, albeit at the ridiculously slow 300 baud rate. There's probably a panel programming option to disable the EVL4, instead of removing power to it. Didn't find that yet.
It seems the EVL4 connectivity issue was actually something to do with the network drop in my workshop! Everything else works in there and the port tests properly, but as soon as I used a longer patch cable to plug it into a port in another room the connectivity issues went away.
Waiting on the rest of my sensors to arrive now, but that was a big hurdle out of the way, that I wasn't even expecting.
I bought DSC's own serial cable and was using a TrendNet Serial/USB connector and a USB extension cable of about 10 ft. The DLS software was connecting to the port no problem, but I just couldn't get it to talk to the panel. Of course, many variables there, with a non-recommended serial adaptor, USB extension etc. I ended up updating the Prolific drivers, moving the panel from my test location, closer to the PC to remove the extension and playing with the baud rate on the port, in DLS and in the panel. Nothing worked.
For the EVL4 I was getting a lot of comms errors from the plugin. It would work some of the time, but then froze and disconnected and wouldn't reconnect. It was also complaining of dupe IPs on the network which seems to be a common problem, according to Google.
Eventually I found a reference to some panels needing 'other' commincators disconnected to allow the DLS software to connect, though it was more like "if your panel requires it". I guess the pc1864 does. As soon as I powered off the EVL4 I was able to communicate with the panel, albeit at the ridiculously slow 300 baud rate. There's probably a panel programming option to disable the EVL4, instead of removing power to it. Didn't find that yet.
It seems the EVL4 connectivity issue was actually something to do with the network drop in my workshop! Everything else works in there and the port tests properly, but as soon as I used a longer patch cable to plug it into a port in another room the connectivity issues went away.
Waiting on the rest of my sensors to arrive now, but that was a big hurdle out of the way, that I wasn't even expecting.
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