I am a newbie to this forum and the world of home automation. I have an NX-8 for which I purchased a NX-584e. I installed the card without issue and think I have configured my keypad correctly. I have a Veralite with a couple of light switches programmed. My Veralite is not in the same room as my alarm controller, so I purchased a WF2SL. I connected a DB9 Null Modem cable between the NX-584e and the WF2SL. I connected the WF2SL to my wireless network and was able to login to it and check its settings. I now have the follow lights on my NX-584e:
DS1 - continuously flashes
DS6 - Stays on continually
DS4 - Flashes about every 4 seconds.
I plan to take the WF2SL out of the picture and connect a laptop in its place to see if there is any communication (using putty). If I have a laptop with a serial interface? When I look in the Veralite where I loaded the NX-8 module, I get a Lua startup error. I have worked on this all weekend and any suggestions on how I can get this to work will be appreciated.
If you really have connected a null modem cable, then you need to move the four jumpers on the NX-584 board to their opposite positions. This is the most common installation mistake and it’s the easiest to fix.
The next most common mistake is to be using the wrong serial speed (baud rate). There will be configuration on both the NX-584 and on the WF2SL, and they have to match. I use 38400, but speeds down to 9600 will still be fine.
If finding a laptop with an RS-232 connection is hard, you might be able to get the laptop to talk to the NX-584 through the WF2SL; PuTTY has a “telnet” mode where you can connect to any IP address and port.
If you connect and just sit and watch you’ll see binary output like this, repeating every 1.5 seconds:
~ ? ?yj
(the ~ will always be there but the remaining text varies; trip a sensor by walking in front of it to ensure that the interface sends something).
I switched the jumpers, but still no luck. I have the baud rate set to 9600 both on the WF2SL and the Keypad. I get a blank screen when using Putty’s Telnet option
Then it looks like the problem is downstream. I have no personal experience with the Global Cach? products so I can’t guess if it is configured properly. Try and connect your computer directly to the NX-584, perhaps with a USB-to-serial adapter, and see what you get.
I had to order a cable because the prices locally just were too high. I connected the serial to USB cable to my laptop and opened a Putty session with the following results:
These were the results with the jumper settings in the normal position, which I can’t understand because I have a null modem cable. When I switch the jumpers, I get nothing.
I too am trying to get a similar configuration working with the Global Cache IP2SL PoE unit. So hence the reply within this thread.
When setup I am getting the following error with the Vera2 unit:
“Caddx NX584 Security System[11] : Failed to set up interface”
I am using the GC-100 plugin available within Vera GUI and setup the serial port within that device and used that as the serial port within the Caddx device.
I have check the cable (null) & connection (38400 baud) with an old laptop with a physical serial port using PuTTY with the NX584e in ASCII mode and also with the IP2SL unit with PuTTY using telnet & port 4999, both connections produced the same output repeated approximately every 2 seconds in ASCII being:
The Vera is reconnected and address 72# location 0# option 1 is deselected to return to Binary saved with * and exit of programming.
Additional to the fitting of the NX584e, the system was re-installed post a major renovation of the house. This meant that the system was reset to factory defaults to by-pass unknown installer code, and an additional keypad was also added.
So the system is:
1 x NX4 Main unit with Zone doubling with dual end of line option on.
2 x NX1508 LED code pads
1 x NX584e Home Automation Module.
The NX584e was added last after testing of the system without it.
Do I need to change any main panel programming from factory, other than operational items such as entry/exit delays for correct communication/format exchange to the 584e?
That error message is generated by the plugin if the NX-584 is missing one of the essential message types in its enabled-message-type list. The list of message types that you have to enable is listed on the plugin’s documentation page. Edit: on further reading of the code, I’m not sure that my previous claim is true. You may only get that error message when the plugin can’t speak to the NX-584. But try the action in the next paragraph first, just to make sure.
If you can enable “Debug to Luup Log” on the Configure tab and capture a Luup log then we can probably zero in on the cause quite quickly.
The same message might be generated in other circumstances, but you’ve already debugged the physical connection, so let’s look at the software first.
You can go to the Advanced tab for the device and edit the Debug variable to the value 1. If there is no Debug variable, you can add it (copy and paste to ensure you don’t mistype them):
New service: urn:futzle-com:serviceId:CaddxNX584Security1
New variable: Debug
New value: 1
Then Save.
I am leaning towards the likelihood that Vera’s not able to communicate with the WF2SL, leaving the plugin dead in the water. While I’m convinced by your testing that you have set up the WF2SL properly, I’m not convinced that the Vera is properly configured to talk to it. But let’s rule out a problem with the plugin first by capturing the Luup log during a reload.