Subject: From: Date:

Re: [ECS] ECS Error Dan Carrington Mon, 24 Aug 1998 10:33:34 -0700

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I have seen Serial to USB convertors and they may be usefull in a pinch
but they are somewhat expensive.  I found them in my B&B catalog that I
have a Caller ID box from for only $25.  They sell a Parallel Port to
USB convertor as a cable with USB on one end and Parallel on the other
for $60.  They have a single serial RS-232 to USB as a DB25 connector
with USB socket on the cable end up to 115,200 baud for $80.  They also
have a box with four RS-232 ports up to 230,000 baud for $400.  You can
also get USB hubs that allow you to hook up more cables to one port like
a network kind of thing.  I do not know how on the pc side the software
looks to USB ports but that might be Windows setting up a Com# or LPT#
and it just goes there as opposed to the direct port.  Try at will... 
The company can be found at www.bb-elec.com  .

I have no ties with this company but they have lots of cool adapters and
extenders and such...

Dan Carrington
 




J Gary Mull wrote:
> 
> I am having a frustrating problem when I reboot the PC as my Homevision
> interface just does not want to fully connect to ECS.
> 
> When I go to reset the HV I receive the error "ERR #004C: (Item
> "Homevision")"  Then it will say Item Reset.  However, the item really did
> not reset and does not communicate to ECS.
> 
> Sometimes I am successful in disconnecting all the cables into the HV unit,
> Serial, Power, etc, wait a minute and then reconnect the power back up,
> then disconnect, then connect all cables back to HV and then hit PF5 reset
> before it will reset.  Sometimes in about 30 minutes the system will reset
> itself.  Since I was busy with a project outside with trips to HomeDepot
> etc I thought it would reset on it's own.  It would not reset and the
> system was down for some 8 hours before I was ever able to get it to
> connect.  I was so frustrated and it was dark when I finally got them
> communicating again that I was not about to reboot ECS again and go try to
> capture the error.  Just too late.  I did not have the instructions on what
> to do and all I wanted was to get the $^&&*^&%$ lights back on!
> 
> Anyone had this problem?
> 
> I will try to capture this error and send it to Mark when I have a few
> hours to work on a capture.
> 
> My question is should I have set the date in the HV box?  The only thing
> programmed in the HV box are the IR codes for TV, Stereo.  Sometimes when I
> hit pf5 ECS says "clock failure" for a second or so, then it gives the
> error above and then says reset.  Today I had a really hard time getting
> ECS to link back up to the HV box as nothing I did seemed to work.  If you
> disconnect the serial cable between ECS and HV it gives a totally different
> error.
> 
>       Gary
> jgary@atl.mindspring.com   Gary at Home
> jgmull@us.ibm.com          Gary at Work

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