Is any way to use a Axcent2 as Slave?
alexmgillis
Posts: 8
I know that this feuture comes in the Axcent3 
But i am sure this thought about canivalizing the axcent2 ports after an upgrade has been in some peoples minds already
What i am thinking is to use the program port of the axcent2 and use a NI 3000 rs232 and send commands like "'pulse [5,2]',cr"
But i cna see that i will not have any feedback really so before i go though the travel to program my ni300 to telnet my axcent2 i was wondering if there is any other way to do this or any other use for his wonderfull little brains of axcent2.
thansk!
But i am sure this thought about canivalizing the axcent2 ports after an upgrade has been in some peoples minds already
What i am thinking is to use the program port of the axcent2 and use a NI 3000 rs232 and send commands like "'pulse [5,2]',cr"
But i cna see that i will not have any feedback really so before i go though the travel to program my ni300 to telnet my axcent2 i was wondering if there is any other way to do this or any other use for his wonderfull little brains of axcent2.
thansk!
0
Comments
You could write a whole driver to work between the Netlinx master and the axcent. If this was something you wanted to do for fun, sure. Why not. Just pick a serial port on each thing to communicate and have at it.
However, if this project is something for hire, then you'll probably spend more time and resources trying to do this than if you just went ahead and bought something up to date.
This project probably falls into the category of spending $2000 to save $1000.
.
It's a bit of a pain picking your way through the old information and trying to piece it together, but once you figure out how it works it actually works pretty well. With a small snippet of code on the Axcent and a well written NetLinx module it's possible to use a virtual device as an alias to the Axcent almost flawlessly.
Thnaks for the info, I want to do a simple moduel for this.
i donwload the pdf manual and i did not find anything about "External control protocol" other that it seems the device itself has a rs232. Can you post a link to the manual or maybe some code to get me started?
I do have the time and several Axcent2 that i do not want to sink in to the waters for the heck of it when i know i can canivalize rs232, i/o and ir which are a great deal, just look at the diference bwteen a NI700 and a NI3000 can be $2000 upgrade or $25 on a axcent2 ebay auction
thanks!
(AMX Tech Center -> Manuals -> Development Tools -> "Instruction Manual - Axcess Control System Program") The ECP chapter is toward the end of the manual.
I also have an Axcent2 from eBay. I've often considered doing exactly what you are proposing, but never had the time/need. Perhaps one day... It would be nice to put some smarts into the Netlinx module so that if you try to send_string on the Axcent2 port which is being used for ECP, the module should catch the issue and reply with a warning (send_string 0, 'Port reserved for External Control protocol'). You'd have to initially tell the module which Axcent2 port is being used for ECP.
Many years ago I wrote a Win32 program to use ECP with some Axcent3 masters. It worked very smoothly, though you may want to avoid lots of serial polling. As I recall, it did not seem quite as responsive as when you connect directly with Open Axcess. Maybe my Win32 app wasn't too efficient...
Yours,
Roger McLean
Swinburne University
You can find an Axcent3 on eBay for very little...which CAN be slaved. If you are looking for extra ports on the cheap, this is the way to go.
thank you every body... i will post any update in my quest and if somebody wants to post some code or ideas that is very cool, but i pormose that if i got some decent code i post it too