Apex Destiny-6100

From LinuxMCE
Revision as of 03:44, 6 October 2006 by Wikiadmin (Talk | contribs) (Figuring the protocol up)

Jump to: navigation, search
This page was written by Pluto and imported with their permission when LinuxMCE branched off in February, 2007. In general any information should apply to LinuxMCE. However, this page should be edited to reflect changes to LinuxMCE and remove old references to Pluto.
== Installation ==

In order to setup the Apex system, you first need to connect it to a power supply, set the sensors and tie them to the inputs on the bord from the panel, and also connect the wall panel to the main panel. You cand find a very thourough description in the installation manual supplied by HoneyWell (can be downloaded in the support section of the security site.

The configuration can be done either using the wall panel, or a computer and then uploaded with the special software they supply. What interests us more, though, is communicating with the panel through the serial RS232 protocol.

Destiny 6100 RS232 protocol

In the same support section, you can also download the specification for comunicating to the panel through RS232 (filename k1231.pdf at this time). There is also a simple application you can use to verify the command string sintax (explained in k1231.pdf), as well the fact that the panel is set up to receive commands through the serial port.

There is a special board that has to be mounted on the main board in the panel's case, in urder to get a RS232 connector. You can plug an RJ45 cable there, witch goes to a serial convertor (or any other way you can plug it into your computer, we used the to serial convertor as well as a RadioShack USB Serial cable).

After setting this, use the software to make sure the panel is set up corectlly. You first have to connect to the correct port, then start sending commands. If everything is ok, you should here the vocal confirmations from the panel. If you don't, check the yellow led on the board, the one that's the closest to the RS232 extension. This one should blink the instant you send a command. If this happens. most probablly you don't have the propper jumpoer setting on the RS232 extension board. It should connect the pins that are closer to the box edge.

In the document you can also find a short C program that builds command strings (there is a checksum that has to be added to the command string) that can be sent directlly through the serial port once you got it working.

Figuring the protocol up

The comunication protocol is preatty simple, but there is a section not so well documented, more exacly section 5.8. You can find the specifications for most memory locations in the Installation Instructions (page 36). Still, there's no info about fetching zone data in there (they say this can only be done through the wall panel control - page 24 of the same document).

There are two workarounds for that.