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X10 Extended Commands?
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mdavej
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 5:57 pm    Post subject: X10 Extended Commands? Reply with quote

I saw a post in another forum that claimed a now defunct harmony of his could shoot a Dim All command via IR to his IR-543. I did a little digging in an old X10 protocol doc of mine and see that this is possible using the extend command set using "Select Group ..." and "Dim All Units in Group ...". Anybody ever heard of this or know the full extended command set and associated IR codes?
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 7:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I tried searching to see what I could find and ended up finding the Harmony thread that you mentioned! Smile
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=19205234

I can't use the dim function anymore because we've got CFL bulbs, but here's a trick that I remember that you might like.

If you wanted to turn a bunch of lights on, for example, rather than doing this...

1, ON, 2, ON, 3, ON

You could do this...

1,2,3,ON

and all three would come on. The cool thing is, that the IR543 box stays primed for all 3 until you press another number button, so if you do this...

1,2,3,ON,OFF

All three lights would come on, then all three would go off.

I'm pretty sure this works for DIM also.
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cauer29



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PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 8:57 pm    Post subject: Re: X10 Extended Commands? Reply with quote

mdavej wrote:
I saw a post in another forum that claimed a now defunct harmony of his could shoot a Dim All command via IR to his IR-543. I did a little digging in an old X10 protocol doc of mine and see that this is possible using the extend command set using "Select Group ..." and "Dim All Units in Group ...". Anybody ever heard of this or know the full extended command set and associated IR codes?


Beyond the simple 1-16 unit cmds, the IR543 also supports the following 16 function cmds:

function EFC
AUF 230
ALO 38
ON 102
OFF 166
DIM 231
BRT 39
ALF 103
XTC 167
HRQ 228
HAK 36
PD0 100
PD1 164
XTD 229
STO 37
STF 101
SRQ 165

From what I remember, it's the XTC or XTD functions that setup for the following data. With the X10 powerline protocol, there isn't any limit to the number of bits you could send after XTC or XTD, but I don't see a way to send 8 bits of "data" via the X10 IR protocol. That is unless the 543 specifically recognizes the XTC or XTD function and doesn't interpret the following IR reception as a unit/function. It might be worth a little experimentation.

A.A.
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Which version of the IR protocol were you using to get those EFCs? I ask because they don't match either the official UEI version of the JP1 hacked version.
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cauer29



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PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 11:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Robman wrote:
Which version of the IR protocol were you using to get those EFCs? I ask because they don't match either the official UEI version of the JP1 hacked version.


I determined these from the built-in 0167 setup code for an 8910. There are many many duplicate EFCs. That is, EFCs that are +/-8 from a given one also seem to send the same code. Example: 230, 238, 246 and 254 all send AUF. Also verified on a 15-100 with setup code 0167 (EFCs padded to 5 digits). Near as I can tell, all X10 codes are 'aliased' on 4 different EFCs. As I recall, I just picked the lowest working EFC value for each function. I assume the aliasing has to do with mapping an 8 bit EFC to a 5 bit function and somebody just took a shortcut ignoring some bits in the conversion.

A.A.
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've matched up the standard functions and verified that they use the same OBCs:

AUF = OBC 16 - all off
DIM = OBC 18 - dim
ON = OBC 20 - turn on
ALF = OBC 22 - all lights off
ALO = OBC 24 - all lights on
BRT = OBC 26 - brighten
OFF = OBC 28 - turn off

Which leaves the following as new functions:

HRQ = OBC 17
XTD = OBC 19
PD0 = OBC 21
STF = OBC 23
HAK = OBC 25
STO = OBC 27
PD1 = OBC 29
XTC = OBC 30
SRQ = OBC 31

Do you know what each of the 3 letter acronyms stands for?
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cauer29



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PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 2:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Robman wrote:
I've matched up the standard functions and verified that they use the same OBCs:

AUF = OBC 16 - all off
DIM = OBC 18 - dim
ON = OBC 20 - turn on
ALF = OBC 22 - all lights off
ALO = OBC 24 - all lights on
BRT = OBC 26 - brighten
OFF = OBC 28 - turn off

Which leaves the following as new functions:

HRQ = OBC 17
XTD = OBC 19
PD0 = OBC 21
STF = OBC 23
HAK = OBC 25
STO = OBC 27
PD1 = OBC 29
XTC = OBC 30
SRQ = OBC 31

Do you know what each of the 3 letter acronyms stands for?


HRQ = hail request. I don't think this was ever used by X10, but the concept was some sort of thing where when you first plug in an X10 controller, it would send out a HRQ on a given house code and if it got back a response, it would know to choose a different house code.

XTD = extended data. This is a way to send arbitrary data using the X10 powerline protocol. It's required that the data itself follow the XTD cmd with no gap at all on the powerline. It's not at all clear how to make the IR543 do something like that.

PD0 = preset dim 0. I believe that this is deprecated in favor of XTD or XTC.

STF = status off. This is a response to a SRQ.

HAK = hail acknowledge. See HRQ.

STO = status on. This is a response to a SRQ.

PD1 = preset dim 1. See PD0.

XTC = extended cmd. Similar to extended data. I don't know exactly how this is used in conjunction with XTD.

SRQ = status request. Sent by a controller to determine the on/off status of a module. It's seems a little silly to send this via the IR543 since there would be no way to "hear" the response. Nonetheless when you punch up EFC 165, 173, 181 or 189, that's what the IR543 sends out.

I will do some experimenting to see if I can figure out if the Leviton group and preset dim X10 extensions are using XTC or XTD. Even if so, it doesn't help us understand how to get an IR543 to send gapless.

A.A.
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 2:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Where did you get all this data? If some of these are commands that the IR543 can't handle, how do even know that they exist? Isn't the IR543 infrared protocol unique to it, or is it also used by some other devices?
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cauer29



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PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 5:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Robman wrote:
Where did you get all this data? If some of these are commands that the IR543 can't handle, how do even know that they exist? Isn't the IR543 infrared protocol unique to it, or is it also used by some other devices?


As X10 powerline protocol commands these are well documented on the X10 website:

http://www.x10.com/support/technology1.htm

The table there showing the keycodes outlines the 16 non-unit codes that can be sent. I found out that the IR543 can send these, by stepping through EFCs one by one using an old Houselinc controller that uses a JP1 IC. It wasn't bad doing all 256 EFCs since you control the Houselinc through a computer instead of mashing buttons on a remote. I logged what got sent over the powerline for each EFC using an AppDig Ocelot with X10 interface.

I was trying to use the Ocelot just now to send Leviton group and preset dim commands to see if those use the XTC or XTD codes, but as it turns out the X10 transmit function is dead. Receive works fine and that's all I use it for normally anyway, so I didn't even know that transmit was dead.

A.A.
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cauer29



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PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Digging into this a little more, I figured out how the XTC codes are used. It appears that a normal X10 powerline protocol command finishes in 11 cycles and that is normally followed by at least 2 cycles of nothing, but for the XTC command, immediately following the 5 bit cmd field (01111) there are 20 more bits. In the X10 IR protocol, the 5 bit cmd field is normally followed by the postamble (leadout). So, if we had a way to extend the protocol by another 20 bits before leadout, then perhaps we could get a real extended code out. Even without doing that, the IR543 still seems to be sending out the first 11 cycles. I need to dig out the X10 protocol analyzer to see if it's sending anything beyond the first 11 cycles.

The 20 bits for the extended cmds are defined by X10 in this document:

ftp://ftp.x10.com/pub/manuals/xtc798.doc

There it outlines 3 different extended code types. Generally only type 1 is interesting. I also noticed that Leviton seems to treat the 20 bits as a simple binary fraction of the dim percentage and this is not in agreement with the X10 document.

A.A.
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mdavej
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 10:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, everybody. Turns out the OP actually used macros for dimming. So this has been a wild goose chase since he wasn't using any extended commands at all.
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

cauer29 wrote:
In the X10 IR protocol, the 5 bit cmd field is normally followed by the postamble (leadout). So, if we had a way to extend the protocol by another 20 bits before leadout, then perhaps we could get a real extended code out.

If I were to do that, would you have a way of testing it? Do you have X10 gear that would respond to the extended codes?
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cauer29



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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 12:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Robman wrote:
cauer29 wrote:
In the X10 IR protocol, the 5 bit cmd field is normally followed by the postamble (leadout). So, if we had a way to extend the protocol by another 20 bits before leadout, then perhaps we could get a real extended code out.

If I were to do that, would you have a way of testing it? Do you have X10 gear that would respond to the extended codes?


Yes, I have a couple of Leviton X10 dimmers that respond to extended commands, but it would be much easier to use my X10 protocol analyzer to see what makes it onto the line. That said, I used the protocol analyzer to see what the IR543 puts out on the powerline in response to receiving EFC 00167 (XTC). It's even more puzzling, as it would appear that in addition to the expected start code/house code/cmd code, it then starts a new frame without a gap from the previous frame and then 10 bits of '0011011110'. That's 0x0DE in MSB or 0x1EC in LSB. It doesn't make any sense to me. It seems that the IR543 just spits something out. It's always the same data. The Levition dimmers are not going to like seeing 10 bits when they're expecting 20 bits and it's not clear how to control what the IR543 does send.

I think what I'll do is to gen up some pronto hex using Makehex with a custom IRP to expand the existing x10 IR protocol and upload that to the Ocelot where I can systematically test things without having to mess with the remote.

On the other hand, I see the OP has since discovered that the other guy wasn't using extended codes at all. Still, it's a little bit intriguing. In the end, even if I figure it out, it might end up being useful for so-called "group" commands, but for preset dim via extended code, the user would have to predefine a finite number of dim settings and assign those to specific buttons on the remote. I guess that could work.

One final thought: I wonder if the 10 bits that the IR543 puts out following the XTC cmd are somehow related to the extra junk that the UEI X10 IR protocol puts out prior to the normal X10 IR protocol? I'll have to dig out a real X10 IR remote and see what I get on the powerline.

A.A.
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mdavej
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 2:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I did learn something new. The OP's macro stacked unit numbers then the following command worked on all of them. For example "unit 1, unit 2, unit 3, unit 4, on" turned on all four. I never knew you could do that.
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 3:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

cauer29 wrote:
One final thought: I wonder if the 10 bits that the IR543 puts out following the XTC cmd are somehow related to the extra junk that the UEI X10 IR protocol puts out prior to the normal X10 IR protocol? I'll have to dig out a real X10 IR remote and see what I get on the powerline.

The real X10 remotes send the same signal as my simple upgrade. The UEI executor puts that extra junk in there to make the signal hard to learn. If you find out that the 20 bit version of the protocol has some value, let me know and I'll write an executor for it.
mdavej wrote:
Well, I did learn something new. The OP's macro stacked unit numbers then the following command worked on all of them. For example "unit 1, unit 2, unit 3, unit 4, on" turned on all four. I never knew you could do that.

That's what I suspected he was doing.
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