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Ocelot Plug-In for HS3

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    #16
    Is there a list of what devices are an extended lamp module?

    Sent from my GT-P5210 using Tapatalk

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      #17
      Originally posted by mterry63 View Post
      Is there a list of what devices are an extended lamp module?
      I do not have a list of lamp/switch modules that are capable of extended commands at this time.

      The plug-in can handle lamp/switch modules that respond to On, Off, Dim, and Bright commands and lamp/switch modules that respond to the latter and extended commands. If the Ocelot can control the X-10 unit, the plug-in may be able to also.

      My experience is with WS467 wall switches. Depending on when they were manufactured, they work with the plug-in as lamp modules or extended lamp modules. If you have particular switches you want to use, let me know and I'll look to see if they will work.

      Had some bad experiences with X10 early on in large house installations and have pretty much steered away from the technology in favor of Z-Wave, UPB and RadioRA. Could make it work, but 2 weeks later the customer would plug something into the wall and kill it. Would go back, troubleshoot and fix but after multiple returns on site, the cost effective factor went down the drain

      The plug-in was developed primarily for IO, variable (for capturing analog values) and IR. X10 got thrown in as an after thought but I am more than willing to add what I can to the current capabilities.

      Let me know what devices you need to work with the plug-in and I will look into it.

      Bruce

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        #18
        Thanks Bruce.

        I'm coming from a working HS2/Ocelot setup to HS3, and all my X10 devices worked fine under the HS2/Ocelot combination.

        I've got standard X10 lamp and appliance modules, as well as Leviton DHC devices (switches) and Compose PLC devices (Fan Controllers). Sounds like your plugin should work with these. The challenge is figuring out what "type" to select when adding them to the plugin. Should be relatively straightforward. Outside the X10 units I think all the others support extended commands/dimming. I also have the SECU16 I/O module which is great to have supported again.

        My Ocelot is connected to an XTB-IIR and I haven't had a signal issue in years.

        I've got a number of the Bobcat modules that I no longer use (switched to Z-Wave on all those) so maybe we can work something out for getting them to you for adding support. I have the Light/Temp/Humidity modules but not the Contact/RS232/RS485 modules.

        Let me add my thanks for rescuing all the Homeseer users that felt the Ocelot just "worked" and never replaced it. I've even got a spare just in case, LOL.


        Will definitely be purchasing this plugin!

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          #19
          mterry63,

          It will be interesting to see what works and what doesn't. I had a great time getting the plug-in to where it is. Would very much like to get it to the capability of the HS2 plug-ins and maybe beyond before I move on to porting some of my other plug-ins to HS3.

          It's been so long I can't remember why I gravitated to the HS2 mcs ADIOcelot plug-in. Which HS2 Ocelot plug-in are you using now?

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            #20
            I was using the standard Homeseer Ocelot Plugin on HS2. I've been on HS3 for about 4 months.

            I started HS3 with the Homeseer Ocelot plugin (supporting I/O only) and the Homeseer X10 plugin with a spare TI103 I had. The Ocelot plugin was buggy, and the TI103 was kind of a pain, so I moved recently to the xapmcsadiOcelot plugin. It just requires more complexity and a lot of old technology (ActiveX).

            I'm hoping with your plugin I can go back to a simplified version with I/O and X10 support. I migrated my Ocelot IR, which worked great for years, to the Harmony Hub IR plugin and never looked back.

            I'll wrap up migrating to your plugin this weekend and report back how things went.

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              #21
              mterry63,
              I look forward to your results

              Comment


                #22
                I did run into one odd thing that appears to be a problem. I use Tenholde's tenscriptaid utility, and it won't run after creating a device with this plugin. He created a tool called findbadeviceref listed here http://board.homeseer.com/showpost.p...6&postcount=19 and when I run it it hangs on the first device id created by this plugin.

                Oddly enough, that was also one of the issues with the Homeseer Ocelot plugin that only did I/O.

                It seems like something isn't being created that expected in the device object?

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                  #23
                  mterry63,
                  I'll check it out either later tonight when I get back or tomorrow morning.

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                    #24
                    Thanks for doing the work. When I have time I will go this route for sure, just too busy right now to make changes. Using the HS3 X10 and some devices work, others don't. All worked with Ocelot on HS1 and 2. Looking forward to getting on board with this Plugin.

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                      #25
                      Originally posted by mterry63 View Post
                      I did run into one odd thing that appears to be a problem. I use Tenholde's tenscriptaid utility, and it won't run after creating a device with this plugin. He created a tool called findbadeviceref listed here http://board.homeseer.com/showpost.p...6&postcount=19 and when I run it it hangs on the first device id created by this plugin.

                      Oddly enough, that was also one of the issues with the Homeseer Ocelot plugin that only did I/O.

                      It seems like something isn't being created that expected in the device object?
                      I think I found the issue. Might be the PED (PlugExtraData) info I have in the devices causing tenScriptAid to lockup. It's a new feature introduced in HS3 and comes in very handy for plug-ins that have different device types doing different things. I use it extensively. I wrote a quick Sub that I can run with scripting to strip the PED from one device at a time. When I remove the PED from a device, tenScriptingAid runs as it should with the GTS CPUXA devices showing up. That's probably why the devices in the HomeSeer plug-in wouldn't work as they have PED info also. If you look at a device's config/advanced tab you can see if they have PED info in the Extra Data Store entry. You can see there that GTS CPUXA devices have 6 Named entries.

                      Edit: More on PED here


                      I have a PM into Ed to see if he has seen this before and if we can, between the two of us, get it resolved. I'll keep you posted

                      Update: Ed got back to me and pointed me in the right direction. For now, if you can, put a copy of the HSPI_GTS_CPUXA.exe in the folder where tenScripAid runs and in a future update I will change the way I store PED data so remote plug-ins have access.

                      Update2: There is a new version (3.5.16065.18) in the updater that fixes remote plug-in access to device data. You will have to delete any devices created with 3.5.16059.1 if remote plugins will be accessing GTS CPUXA devices. I apologize for the inconvenience.

                      Bruce
                      Last edited by bbowser; March 5, 2016, 11:21 PM.

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                        #26
                        Switched to the new version last night and I've seen a few errors in the log that I hadn't seen with the previous version. From the log:

                        (Occurred early morning, so no changes to the system were being made)
                        Mar-06 2:09:00 AM GTS CPUXA Error in FindDevice: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
                        Mar-06 3:57:07 AM GTS CPUXA Error in FindDevice: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
                        Mar-06 5:28:15 AM GTS CPUXA Retrying to connect to Ocelot in 4 seconds. This is 1 out of 5 tries.
                        Mar-06 5:28:15 AM GTS CPUXA Error, GTS CPUXA Plug-in, Ocelot/Leopard not available.

                        During this time I have the Homeseer X10 plugin with most devices configured through it, and a couple of test devices on the Ocelot plugin.

                        In spite of the errors I'm going to take the plunge and migrate all my X10 devices today. Hope it works.

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Originally posted by mterry63 View Post
                          Switched to the new version last night and I've seen a few errors in the log that I hadn't seen with the previous version. From the log:

                          (Occurred early morning, so no changes to the system were being made)
                          Mar-06 2:09:00 AM GTS CPUXA Error in FindDevice: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
                          Mar-06 3:57:07 AM GTS CPUXA Error in FindDevice: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
                          Mar-06 5:28:15 AM GTS CPUXA Retrying to connect to Ocelot in 4 seconds. This is 1 out of 5 tries.
                          Mar-06 5:28:15 AM GTS CPUXA Error, GTS CPUXA Plug-in, Ocelot/Leopard not available.

                          During this time I have the Homeseer X10 plugin with most devices configured through it, and a couple of test devices on the Ocelot plugin.

                          In spite of the errors I'm going to take the plunge and migrate all my X10 devices today. Hope it works.
                          Thanks!

                          That is a com port communication issue I have seen when the plug-in is starting. I have seen that a few times but had not been able to pin it down. Restarting the plug-in has always worked. That is still on the list but haven't seen it in quite a while. I thought it may be an issue with the Quatech QSE-100 I'm connecting from on the Windows machines. Haven't seen that issue on Linux connecting from a PCI or USB serial port. I'll schedule some time to see if I can reproduce the problem and find a better way to establish the connection if it gets confused on startup.

                          Bruce

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                            #28
                            In case it's helpful, my Ocelot is connected to an 8 port Comtrol RocketPort PCI serial card. It's been in the system for years.

                            I've recreated all my X10 devices to this plugin, one thing I noticed was that the default button/slider layout is different than the standard X10 plugin. This plugin creates the control widgets as On/Off/Slider, where the X10 plugin creates control widgets as Off/On/Slider. Not a big deal, just different.

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                              #29
                              Originally posted by bbowser View Post
                              There is a new version (3.5.16065.18) in the updater that fixes remote plug-in access to device data. You will have to delete any devices created with 3.5.16059.1 if remote plugins will be accessing GTS CPUXA devices. I apologize for the inconvenience.

                              Bruce
                              I am in the middle of learning all my remotes into the plugin and the Ocelot. I don't right now have plans for externally accessing the plugin, but if I did in the future, are you saying I would have to rebuild all my IR devices? (not necessarily re-learn codes but create new HS devices pointing to the correct Ocelot IR slots).

                              If I understand correctly, I should stop right now, update the plugin, then start fresh to future proof myself against ever wanting to access externally. If this is correct, any chance of a updater script alternative?

                              Comment


                                #30
                                Originally posted by randy_h View Post
                                I am in the middle of learning all my remotes into the plugin and the Ocelot. I don't right now have plans for externally accessing the plugin, but if I did in the future, are you saying I would have to rebuild all my IR devices? (not necessarily re-learn codes but create new HS devices pointing to the correct Ocelot IR slots).

                                If I understand correctly, I should stop right now, update the plugin, then start fresh to future proof myself against ever wanting to access externally. If this is correct, any chance of a updater script alternative?
                                Unfortunately yes Randy... I apologize for the inconvenience. I don't anticipate this kind of issue in the future. Thanks again to mterry63 for finding this.

                                And yes you won't have to relearn IR locations.

                                Edit: Sorry I was on the road Would be faster for you to recreate rather that wait for me to come up with a script or internal function.

                                Bruce
                                Last edited by bbowser; March 6, 2016, 03:30 PM.

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