Have just installed AH 1.42, but during the install a window popped up saying "an installable virtual device failed initialization; S32evnt1.dll"
By clicking ignore, I was able to continue the AH 1.42 installation. AH did find the CM11A and I was able to operate the test relay module in the plug strip with the CM11A. So set the CM11A's clock & stored a timer setting for that module and waited. So far so good.
But at 6pm the lite turned on not at 7:15pm. After that the AH program could not turn the relay module off or on. (I could turn the module on and off with a manual controller plugged in across the room, though.)
And in general the CM11A seems unresponsive.
And then 2 hours later AH program had an error in some part of it and closed that part. But the AH program was still up on the desktop. ?? So I shut t off and started this post.
Well tried uplugging the CM11A, then removing its batteries... then restarting AH 1.42... All with nothing different. The CM11A acted like a white rectangular ROCK.
But then when had a break, I rebooted the machine. with the CM11A disconnected from the computer. Started the AH 1.42... connected the RJ45 to the CM11A and IT worked again... !!!!!!
Any ideas why??? Does the CM11A get tired of talking to the computer and just close down?
Will try it as a light timer tomorrow. Then try some of the macros I built and DL'd to it.
Not sure how the AH macros work, it looks pretty limited. I had expected that I could use a handheld RF device thru a TM751 to trigger a macro. e.g "A1-on" runs macro 1 to turn on a bank of devices and "A1-off" would run the same macro to do the second command (turn off), but it doesn't look like that will work. Are there any decent references on AH macros?
try to uninstall and re-install the AH (Active Home?) software and try again!
check out the AH vendor (Marmitek) and see if this is a known issue
I have had non-responsive CM11 controller also and problem went away went I took it out of the power socket (no batteries in the controller installed anymore) so it must have gone "dead" then which (after replugging it in the power socket) seemed to have gone back to a state in which it communicated again and worked fine. Had that a couple of times especially when the communications link (RS232 "service") was shut down and restarted again. Somehow sometimes PC and CM11 dont reconnect than...
try to uninstall and re-install the AH (ActiveHome?) software and try again.
Also disconnect the CM11 from the power net (also take out possible battery backup).
did you check out the AH vendors' site if this is a known problem?
I had some communication problems with my CM11 controller which were resolved when I disconnected it from the powernet (have no batteries installed anymore).
I dont know why it seems to work that way with the communication (and do we care? :-))). I guess both are simply in a mode that they do not get into the right protocol state to communicate again...
And indeed the macro's are rather limited.... You can use the help in AH but just some experimentation works best to figure things out in a couple of hours (worked for me). I personally use my own H.A. application that forks the X10COMM.EXE executable (exact filename may vary) to communicate with the CM11 and that works fine for me. And than I can "macro" whatever I want. I have had my window shutters (blinds, i'm not sure how to call them properly in Englisch (i'm Dutch), sorry), go up and down for at least a year with the CM11 timers and that worked well almost 365 days...
What program would you suggest as an alternative for AH 1.42? I'm not opposed to buying a program, but can't afford to go thru too many of them as trials So user's experience is very valuable to me.
I will look of the site for the mfgr of AH. Thanks for that name.
On Macros: I had expected to be able to do a bit of "if then" , daily resets etc. And to use my RF keyfobs and RF stick on switches to activate these macros stored in the CM11A.
The concept that I am looking at was to have the CM11A look for say the A house code and use the A's for triggering macros which control actions of modules other house codes.
The x10 system that I have in mind is not that complex. But the use of RF controls to activate macros to handle banks of relay controlled efficient mini-floro lites will really make the system more friendly, particularly for my wife.
Also have wanted to do three other things that I don't see how to do simply at the moment.
1) to get a signal like a relay closure or a "beep"telling me when ever the front outside motion is detected. I have 1-M16. 1-M14 and
2-DM10A motion sensors. During the day I want to be alerted to people approaching the Front Door. At nite I want it to turn on the front door lite, but I want to be able to turn that feature off entirely.
The plan had been to use an embedded relay module to turn on and off the light. It seemed I would need two motion sensors, though; one for
24 hr motion detection and the other for turning the lite on at night. But then also how do I block the nite motion activation when I want to. That seems to require yet another relay module in series with the main front door light relay module.
Do X10 plcf signals pass thru one relay module to another ok? It would be easier, of course, to just use a macro to temporarily deactivate the action of the nite time motion sensor turning on the front door light. But that would seem to require an "if then" macro with a daily scheduled reset.
2) I would like to be able to turn on the driveway and outside flood lights when I first get to the driveway. This is a bit of a distance,
200 feet plus 20 inches of stone house walls. The only poser at the end of the driveway is for the low voltage lights (soon to become LED's). So there is no 110v AC there to which to connect an RF booster. Figure I need a separate decently powerful RF link to activate some X10 device inside the house.
3) Is there a not too expensive device that will detect and allow me to display the state of my X10 devices without a computer being involved? Kind of like my security system keypad that has LED's for each zone that show that zone'a status. If all it did was display the last signal that it saw for a group of 16 device codes, that would be a help.
Checked them out. They are in the UK and their products do not seem to be available here in the US. And their site does not seem to work well with FireFox?
They do seem to make a number of IR retransmitters. And I am looking for one to use with an airconditioner which uses IR to turn it on etc.
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