I have a Moose Z1100 security system. The system is getting a little flaky on me - keypad alarm occasionally goes off for no reason. Anyway, I plan on replacing the system with one of my own design, but I want to keep the Moose keypads. Does anyone know the serial protocol between the keypad and the main controller?
BRW
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Good luck.
I am really considering plonking all google groupers posts, but they provide so much entertainment.
No protocol exists, that panel used gnomes and small trolls to pass information between the keypad and panel in fact if you listen closely you can hear them breath...
...... and they have bad breath too!
As a Moose man I love all mine but the Z1100 I junk them. As far as using the keypads NO! junk them and put in a compleet system of the same brand.
And don't forget to empty the existing keypad wires of those trolls and gnomes otherwise they will screw with the new system
Empty em in a jar otherwise they get loose and run around causing havok with children and small pets
It's RS-485 multidrop. Don't ask. I actually had to build a "keypad" for a Z-2000 once, which is very similar to the Arrowhead / Moose / GE. Basically, I had to insert data on the bus (from some other home automation equip.) without user intervention. At the time, you could get this kind of support from the manufactuer (if you threw enough money at them... which we did.)
BUT. It won't help you because (unfortunately) there were many protocols. Even if I still had the files there's a good chance it would not match your particular panel revision. A major change occured with the advent of zone extenders, (4, and then 6) and of course the 10-16-64 direct zone support in their upload program.
The password for that is "Shamrock" by the way, ....I remember that much.
But as for info that might actually help you??:
There are (4) wires on the keypad. 2 are for power, one is for clock, one is for data. Easy to check the power. Turn up keypad lights and see if the voltage drags much lower than about 11 volts. If it does, you should check for loose connections, corrosion, basically anything that might be causing higher resistance. Use a volt meter, obviously. You can check it with the lights dimmed, but the idea is to see it worst-case (I am assuming an alpha keypad here of course...) . Running new or larger wires can help, but might be impractical in finished construction.
More probable: The clock and/or data lines have a problem. Again, check for tight connections, but unless you have access to an oscilliscope, you really cant check much past that. I will say that RS485 is a farily robust interface. But it is not impervious to interference and electrical noise. Motors, refrigerators, SCR-type dimmers for household lights, even X-10 home automation gear can generate objectionable noise. If you have these, you may find disabling them one by one will help isolate the problem. Again, start with those near the keypads, or keypad wire runs (assuming you know where those are).
How many keypads do you have? Are they alphanumeric, or just the number ones?
If more than one keypad, there's a good chance you can narrow the problem down. Try removing them one at a time and see if the problem subsides. If it does, you know at least that much. It still might not tell you where the noise and/or level problem is coming from, but it's a start. Check the longest run first.
Also, if you think this is DC-power related, set all the "alert" levels on the keypads to their minimum setting and see if that helps.
Finally, you can probably Ebay a Z1100 / keypad...??
I want to say the data transfer was 9600 baud, but it might have been less than that. You will spend hours deciphering this, assuming you have a good storage scope or better yet, a protocol anlyzer. But then, if you had that, you wouldn't have posted in the first place??
Good luck, whatever you decide.
-mpm
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