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Author Topic: Very Old Active Home System  (Read 19388 times)

Dan Lawrence

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Re: Very Old Active Home System
« Reply #30 on: February 12, 2008, 09:30:18 PM »

BTW, can we have any post not related to the OP's problem moved to the proper forum?
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Charles Sullivan

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Re: Very Old Active Home System
« Reply #31 on: February 12, 2008, 11:05:45 PM »

...I think you must be referring to the old X10 CP290 interface....
Yeah that's the one i was thinking about. Thanks for jogging my memory.

...What I'm seeing with the security feature in the CM11A is that the "random" time just increments by 10 minutes every day after a starting increment the first day.  When the total of the increments exceeds one hour, it wraps around.   (The ActiveHome software subtracts 30 minutes from the programmed time so the variation is +/- 30 minutes.)
Any idea how AHP handles its "random" time or did you mean to say AHP is +/- 30 min?

If AHP is +/- 30 min then that's the poorest random yet.

What I meant was that the "random" time is some value within +/- 30 minutes of the programmed time, not that the random variation is only either +30 minutes or -30 minutes.  This is true of both the old ActiveHome 1.42 and ActiveHome Pro.

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Yesterday it worked.
Today it doesn't work.
X10 on Windows is like that.

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Dan Lawrence

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Re: Very Old Active Home System
« Reply #32 on: February 16, 2008, 08:25:44 AM »

I got an e-mail from Connie, she's still not able to control the lights when she wants them to.  She's an accountant, and this is tax season.  She will post again after April 15.
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CinemaDude

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Re: Very Old Active Home System
« Reply #33 on: March 23, 2008, 05:22:11 PM »

I refuse to give up on the CP290!  It work for a decade for me and I love it.  Besides, there is no reason why it shouldn't be able to communicate with a serial port.  I mean, who would think that between changes in Windows operating systems, the RS232 port somehow got redesigned? 

Anyway, the CP290 running on that funky DOS software program worked fine all the way up to Windows 98; now the way XP handles com ports evidently is not the same way as DOS did (why, I don't know other than Microsoft sucks), but I am hoping that, as Charles S. suggest, getting a serial-to-USB adaptor will solve this stupid problem.  I know XP can do some funky things with the com ports.  I have a printer that worked perfectly with my old computer via the parallel connection, but when it was installed on the new computer running XP Pro, you would think there was not connection at all between the printer and LPT1.  But hook it up via a USB port and bingo -- working now like a charm.

We have a CP 290 unit at the theatre where I work and it is still running via the serial port on a Windows ME OS and even on that it is a little funky -- when you first run the software, it will say it is not connected, try again -- you need to say yes and it will usually connect to the port.  Occasionally you need to say yes more than once....has something to do with the faster timeouts.  I will let you know if the serial port to USB adaptor magically does the trick.  Computers = voodoo.
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Brian H

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Re: Very Old Active Home System
« Reply #34 on: March 23, 2008, 06:28:37 PM »

CinemaDude; Vista is even worse.
Don't count on serial ports and parallel ports on newer computers they also are going away. Same for the new sized hard drives; no more IDE ones just SATA ans ESATA ones.
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