X10 Community Forum

🔌General Home Automation => Automating Your House => Topic started by: Kramer Chins on February 19, 2009, 10:20:53 PM

Title: What's the difference?? CM17A/CM15A
Post by: Kramer Chins on February 19, 2009, 10:20:53 PM

What is the difference between the FireCracker (CM17A) and AHP USB Interface (CM15A) ?

Are they basically the same thing, just one Serial and the other USB ?

Title: Re: What's the difference?? CM17A/CM15A
Post by: -Bill- (of wgjohns.com) on February 19, 2009, 10:34:37 PM

The CM17A only sends commands by RF so you will need a RF to Power Line transceiver to communicate with most modules.

The CM15A has a built-in all house code RF transceiver and natively sends both RF and Power Line commands.

Plus, the CM15A works with Active Home Pro software and I don't think the CM17A does.

Title: Re: What's the difference?? CM17A/CM15A
Post by: x10dude on February 20, 2009, 03:14:16 AM

I wish they would include that in their literature. I ended up getting both (as part of bundles) with the firecracker still in the box. Whos uses serial ports these days anyway? None of my computers even have one and I have 5 of them

Title: Re: What's the difference?? CM17A/CM15A
Post by: Brian H on February 20, 2009, 06:51:42 AM

I still use serial ports  :'

Title: Re: What's the difference?? CM17A/CM15A
Post by: martinito on February 20, 2009, 06:58:10 AM

I think it's worth mentionning that the Firecracker is ONE WAY and only ment to send orders from your PC to your home (a computer controlled remote).

With the other one (USB) you get a two way communication allowing you to create macros that respond to commands issued by other controllers. e.g.: you can call your macro from any controller in the house.

I hope it helps,
Martin

Title: Re: What's the difference?? CM17A/CM15A
Post by: JeffVolp on February 20, 2009, 08:48:39 AM

Quote from: x10dude on February 20, 2009, 03:14:16 AM

Whos uses serial ports these days anyway? None of my computers even have one and I have 5 of them

ALL of my computers have serial ports.  This one even has a serial expander board to provide extra I/O for the Ocelot, Carrier HVAC zone controller, and an anemometer.  Serial certainly isn't as fast as USB, but you can run it 50 to 100 feet without a problem.  It's speed (about 300 times faster than X10) is fine for control functions.

Jeff

Title: Re: What's the difference?? CM17A/CM15A
Post by: x10dude on February 20, 2009, 03:07:23 PM

Wow! I guess I'm just a bit ahead of the curve then. I haven't used a serial port since I programed an SR232-based inventory scanner in the early 90s. I've only owned legacy-free PCs for the last 10 years or so. Didn't mean to insult anyone though. I do appreciate what you guys are doing with the forums!

Thanks..