@Cherokee180c: I’m not terribly knowledgeable about the exchanges between the monitoring station and a DSC panel myself. I think you’re right though in that it only makes sense for the panel to periodically check in with the monitoring system. Section 377 option 7 specifies the test transmission cycle in days/minutes. Maybe this is the transmission the monitoring system is expecting?
And yes, to deal with landline cuts, you’d need something like the DSC GS3060.
As for me, to deal with internet outages, I’ve got my NAT/Router set up with multiple redundant WAN ports. One is connected to my cable ISP, and the other is connected to my neighbor’s DSL ISP.
You have a nice neighbor Good idea though, although I’d be just as worried about the phone line being cut rather than the cable. Phone lines are probably more of an obvious thing to cut anyway!
I really like that solution if you have a good neighbor. The funny thing is that switching to IP adressible on the alarm could actually be an advantage if the thief doesnt understand how Fios works. I can’t imagine anyone breaking into a house that clearly states it has an alam system without them first cutting the phone wires. If they don’t cut the fiber optic cable then your Internet is still up. I have battery backup on my DSC alarm system and FIOS box, so if I add it to the router you are even covered for power out situation. I talked to a local police officer last year after I had my first false alarm in 13 years. It turns out I had a bad motion sensor. He told me smash and grab is the most common method in broad day light when everyone is at work. They kick in the door, rip out the speaker for the alarm and then grab what they can in 2-4 minutes before any police can respond. No standard alam system protects you from this. That is why I plan to have a camera system in the house. One IP addressable and one hidden motion onto SD so at least they might catch the bastages.
From my previous posts I was having problems with labels using the plugin. I think I have an idea why. I have a PC1832, IT-100 and a WizNet. I had found that my RFK5500 keypad needs to be located in slot 8. The IT-100 is hard coded to also take slot 8. With both on the same slot I can not broadcast the zone labels. If I move the keypad to any other slot the zone broadcast function does not work. I can disconnect the IT-100 and broadcast from the keypad with no problems except the IT-100 does not get the update so no zone labels in Vera. I don’t know of any work around for this. Anyone else have this hardware and were able to get zone labels? Is there any way I can force a zone broadcast using DLS2002 or DLS IV?
I’m thinking that I will need a second keypad that can use slot 1-7. Remove the RFK5500 and do a zone broadcast from the second keypad. I hope this allows the IT-100 to accept the broadcast. Any other suggestions?
If you have an RFK keypad then it actually takes 2 slots, one for the radio part, and one for the keypad. I had also read that the primary keypad needed to be in slot 8 also for the broadcast to work, and also the that the IT100 defaults to 8 (I’ll see if I can find this info again and confirm, as it seems to contradict)
I have mine configured as such (i think):
RFK5001 (non alpha) in slot 1 (automatically assigned)
PK5500 (alpha) in slot 5 (I programmed this through DLS IIRC)
IT100 in slot 8 (I think this automatically picked itself)
Either way you should be able to change the assignments through DLS IV along with adding the labels directly to the panel and all should be good.
Mine may have just worked because initially I only had a non alpha keypad, and the whole thing was powered up initially with the IT100 present. The alpha keypad I added later.
I talked to DSC and the RFK5500 (with a PC5132 wireless and temp built in) needs to be in slot 8 in order to broadcast or communicate with DLS software. It is one of the very few keypads that must have this slot.
I’m thinking of trying this:
Add a new PK5500 (no PC5132 wireless option) to slot 1
remove the IT-100
broadcast the labels from the RFK5500 to the PK5500
Once the PK5500 has the labels
remove the RFK5500
reconnect the IT-100
Now if I use the PK5500 (slot 1) to broadcast I’m hopping that the IT-100 will pick up the zone labels. Then I will reconnect the RFK5500. I hope the IT-100 has non volatile memory so it doesn’t loose the zone labels when the power is disconnected. If this works it may be a pain in the butt but I don’t think I will need to change my zone labels that often.
Once again has anyone tried this?
If you assign your keypad to something like slot1 then you won’t need to do a label broadcast if you program them directly to the panel with DLS, this way they automatically get cascaded down from the panel to everything and there is no commanded broadcast needed.
I assume you mean my new PK5500 when you say “your keypad”. I will give this a try this weekend. With the slot 8 conflict I have not been able to see the IT-100 as a device using either version of the DLS software. I’m assuming that once the RFK5500 keypad is removed the IT-100 will show as a keypad on slot 8 when I run a device auto detect?
Connect with DLS and “upload” your current configuration to the PC to edit against.
Reassign your current keypad to another slot (1 for example) I think you can ignore DSC as this is only in regard to broadcasting to other keypads, and although I think they are correct, its ability to not broadcast wont affect its operation or subsequent detection by DLS. (remember we are going to rely on the panel downloading the labels.
In DLS, add your Zone labels under each zone (you have to scroll a long way to the right to see this). Maybe consider making one of them slightly different from what you already had programmed through the keypad, this is so that you can see if it updates your keypad from the new panel based labels where you replaced the “Zone 01” etc
Download your new configuration back the panel.
8 ) Make sure everything is working.
Yehhh! I finally I managed to get the labels to show up… all but my 2 wire smoke detector. Since 2 wire smoke detectors don’t use zones how do I make them display on the GUI?
Not sure you can get the smoke to work, there was a post a while back in this thread where somebody else wanted to do the same and may have typed an S in the configuration???
I’m curious to how you got it working though? Did you follow my instructions roughly, or was something else required? I think this information will be useful to anyone else reading this thread, in case they encounter the same problem.
Here is the process to correct my slot 8 conflict problem;
Power down the panel
Removed power from the IT-100
Power up the panel
Programmed the zones on the RFK5500 with DLS IV
Move the RFK5500 from slot 8 to slot 6 using the keypad, did a supervisory reset, checked the enrollment
Power down the panel, reconnected the IT-100
Used DLS-IV to push the zone labels to the IT-100 that is now in slot 8
I got my IT100 installed, along with an iTach serial-to-wifi connector. I see messages from the DSC to my Vera2 log, so I know I’ve got connectivity. But I cannot set anything through Vera2 to the DSC. I think it is because my iTach is listening on IP port 4999, and Vera2 is sending on another port #. Attached are the screenshots for the 3 places I know to configure the IP address Vera2 should talk to (the DSC panel and System devices), and I’ve included the port #, but don’t think the syntax is correct. Anyone have any ideas on how to correct? Thank you.
You seem to have entered the IP and port correctly and I’d say that this is either some type of setting issue with the iTach, or possibly a cable issue if you don’t have it directly connected to the IT100.
Regarding a possible cabling issue, there was somebody a few pages back that had the same type of issue with a USB adapter.
For the iTach, what if anything does it allow you to change in the way of settings?
The iTach allows basic changes of serial port speed, ip address, etc. I connected it directly to the IT100 without a serial cable. It could be that I need the serial cable between the two, but I wouldn’t have thought so. I’m going to give that a try next chance I get. Thanks for the feedback!
Well if it plugs in directly with no gender changer or cable required then I wouldn’t worry about a cable.
It might be worth validating that the iTach works with something else first, and that you can get bidirectional communication. Do you have any other RS232 devices that it can be tested with using a PC or the test app that GC makes?
Before I go in and take things out of my panel, I’ll try changing some parameters like the stop bits, parity, etc. Nothing was documented in the IT100 guide about those parameters, but they may be preventing data from Vera getting to the DSC.
If I am using TCP/IP as the transport, instead of the direct serial connection (via a WiFi-Serial adapter), should I have to configure a serial port on the DSC Device instance in Vera? If I go there (I/O), it does not list a serial port for me to configure, which sort of makes sense.
I left the IT100 at its default settings, which I believe are what you referenced in the previous post. The error I get when I try to poll or configure is “Delivery Failed.” I"ll keep trying.
I’ve also noticed that after I configure my Zones with the locations like Zone 01 - Smoke Detectors, etc., then at some point the get reset back to the default Zone names.
Should I just uninstall all the DSC plugins/LUA code and start over perhaps?
Good idea though, although I’d be just as worried about the phone line being cut rather than the cable. Phone lines are probably more of an obvious thing to cut anyway!