Probe Zone Hub

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Probe Zone Hub

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Probe Hub Index

• Probe Hub Document Revision
• Probe Kit Description
• How it All Connects Together
• Pin outs and wire colours
• Sample Macros
•  Using the Probe Kit
• Probe Hub Specifications
• Contact Details

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Probe Hub Document Revision
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Probe Kit Description
 The Probe Kit is a collection of hardware
devices that are used to get the status of tv,s
vcrs etc and return the status when requested to
Home Vision It was designed after a request
from a Home Vision / FirM user who wanted to
connect video led probes to his Home Vision
unit easily and also required led status
indication for each piece of kit..Three pieces of
hardware are required and I will give a brief
description of each.   Firstly we will look at
the Probe Zone Hub  The Probe Zone Hub is the
main controller and its function is to get the
status of a probe and pass the status info back
to Home Vision It has an onboard micro
controller which returns the status of the
requested Probe to Home Vision whenever it
receives a Zone or Probe Strobe command.
There are also several led indicators on the
front panel of the Probe Zone Hub to indicate the
following. Power led to show that the power
is presentAlive led to indicate the controller
is functioning ok Zones leds (which are red) to
indicate which zone Home Vision wishes to read
fromProbe leds (which are green) to indicate
which probe from within the selected zone Home
Vision wishes to read.And finally two led
indicators to show the OFF / ON(which are green
and red respectively) status of the selected
probe. The Probe Zone Hub also has eight rj45
sockets located at the rear and these are used to
connect up to eight Zone Probe Monitors
to..There is also a db9 male socket located at
the rear and this is used for the i/o connections
to and from Home Vision                
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Probe Zone Monitor
    Next we will look at the Zone Probe
Monitor The Probe Zone Monitor is a hardware
device which provides power to the Probes via
3.5mm stereo sockets located at the rear . It
also provides led Indication on the front panel
of the status of each probe..Up to six Probes can
be connected to a Probe Zone Monitor. Also
located at the rear is an rj45 8 pin socket which
is used to provide 12v dc power to the Probe Zone
Monitor and also carries the signal status of
each of the six probes..The led indicators are bi
coloured so when the probe is OFF the status led
is green and when the probe is ON the status led
is red.                    
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Video and Led Probes
  Finally we will look at the Probes
 Currently there are two types of probes which
can be connected to the Probe Zone Monitor. These
are the video probe and led probe. The video
probe monitors the video out of TVs, dvd, and
vcrs etc If video is detected then the probe
output is on The probe status led on the Probe
Zone Monitor will be illuminated red if on and
green if off. The smartlinc video probe can be
used and there will be a pcb version of my
Homebrew video probe soon. The Led Probe
monitors the status of kit that does not have a
video out but has an led status indicator . The
smartlinc Led Probe can be used and is very
useful in detecting vfd displays although very
sensitive to ambient light. A pcb version of my
Homebrew Led Probe will be available shortly..Im
currently using the Led Probe to monitor the
Standby led on a Tv which doesnt have video out.
I have installed a power on led on another Tv
which doesnt have video out and im using a Led
Probe to monitor the status of this led. Also im
using an led probe to monitor the status of an
LD11 which is an x10 dimmer module. The Led Probe
will indicate an On / Off status of the LD11 but
does not indicate the brightness of the LD11.It
does this by sensing the light from a super
bright led which is connected to the output of
the LD11 dimmer module.  
Home Brew video Probe
Smartlinc video Probe
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How it All Connects Together
Video / Led Probe
Home Vision
Db9 I/o lead
Cat5 cable
12 v dc in
Probe Zone Monitor
Probe Zone Hub
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Pin outs and Connections
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Using The Probe Kit
To use the Probe Kit some connections have to be
made first to Home Vision . Five of Port A pins
are required. Three of these are for Zone or
Probe selection, and the other two are for
strobing the Zone or Probe selection. If FirM
hardware is already installed then only two
additional Port A pins are required, the Zone
Strobe and Probe Strobe. The three Mux pins used
by FirM to select the tx zone can be used for
Zone or Probe selection. Only one Home Vision
Port B input is required and this is used to
input the Probe Status. Its probably best to
disconnect power to Home Vision before making
the above connections and of course double check
them before powering up Home Vision . For pin
outs and wiring colours have a look at the
previous slide. Once all connections are made to
Home Vision then insert the db9 connector into
the Probe Zone Hub and apply power to both Home
Vision and the Probe Zone Hub. On initial
power up of the Probe Zone Hub the Zone leds will
light up sequentially followed by the Probe leds
and then the Status leds. This is just a little
start up led test. After doing this the Probe
Zone Hub is ready to receive Zone or Probe
commands from Home Vision Now Probe Zone
Monitors can be connected to the Probe Zone Hub
via cat5 cable and Probes can be connected to
each Probe Zone Monitor. Once all the hardware is
connected some variables need to be declared and
macros written and then the hardware can be
tested. Three variables are required Zone Buffer,
Probe Buffer and Port B Status One macro which
must be written is the Setup Zone Probe macro
. This macro is called when a probe needs to be
read by Home Vision .
   
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Get Probe Status macro
Below is a sample macro to show how the status
of a tv is read with the requirement of turning
the tv on. As can be seen the first thing to do
is load the Zone and Probe Buffers and then call
the setup macro. Next is a delay to allow the Hub
to read the Probe Status. After the delay the
Port B status is read immediately into the result
register and storing the result into another
variable. This is very important as reading the
port pins did not reflect the current status of
the port pins when read. Port b input 4 (bit 3)
is then tested and if high the tv is off so
transmit a tv power on ir signal.
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Probe Setup macro
To get the status of a particular probe two
variables must be loaded first and then the macro
shown below must be called. The two variables are
Zone_Buffer and Probe_Buffer. Obviously the Zone
Buffer has the Zone Number that Home Vision
Wishes to read and the Probe Buffer has the Probe
number that Home Vision wishes to read.
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Zone Off Macro
The macro shown below is called from the
goodnight macro to turn off all kit within that
particular zone. The advantage of turning kit
off on a zone by zone basis is you only need to
load the Zone Buffer Once. As can be seen by the
macro below when setting up to turn off the dvd
player only the Probe Buffer gets loaded.
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Special Zone Off Macro
The macro below is a little different to the
standard Zone Off macro as under a certain
condition the tv appears to be off even though
it is actually on. The tv in question is a Sanyo
tv and it has a video probe attached to the video
out. If the av source is selected on the tv but
the av source is actually turned off then the tv
appears to be off .As can be seen in the macro if
the tv is sensed ON then its turned OFF. But if
the tv is sensed OFF then Home Vision will
transmit a channel 9 ir signal . If the tv was on
it now switches to channel 9 and the video signal
will be detected . If the tv was actually off it
comes on for approx one second and then turns off
after the status is read again. This on period is
not noticeable .
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Probe Zone Kit Specifications
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PC Serial Interface
The PC interface section has now been implemented
to allow serial devices to communicate and
request the status of probes. Both the serial
interface and I/o interface can be utilized if
required. The Probe Zone Hub cannot respond to
Queries from both the serial port and I/o port at
the same time. The protocol is quite simple and
consists of a few ascii characters Below is a
sample command which is requesting the status of
Probe 4 in Zone 1. Q14(cr) this character is
the Start Of Message character Qthis character
indicates that the command is a Probe status
Query 1this is the zone number where the Probe
is located (can be 1 to 8). 4this is the probe
the device wishes to Query (can be 1 to 6). (cr)
..this is the command terminator character
carriage return. The Probe Zone Hub will Reply
with the status of the requested Probe as
follows. R14y / n(cr) this is the Start Of
Message character Rthis character indicates that
this is a Reply to a command 1this is the zone
number where the Probe is located. 4this is
the Probe that the device requested to Query
this is a message separator y / n.If the Probe
is on then y will be sent , if the Probe is off
then n is sent (cr)this is the reply terminator
character carriage return.
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PC Serial Interface
If a device wishes to Query the status of All
Probes within a Zone it must send the following
command. QA8(cr) this character is the
Start Of Message character Qthis character
indicates that the command is a probe status
Query Athis character indicates the device
wishes to Query All Probes within the specified
Zone. 8this is the zone number where the Probes
are located (can be 1 to 8). (cr)..this is the
command terminator character carriage
return. The Probe Zone Hub will reply , below
are some examples of reply messages. RA8nnnnnn
this is the Start Of Message
character Rthis character indicates that this
is a Reply to a command Athis character
indicates that the status of All probes will be
returned 8.this is the zone number where the
Probes are located. this is a message
separator nnnnnn.this indicates that ALL Probes
are in the OFF state (cr).this is the reply
terminator character carriage return.
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PC Serial Interface
RA8yyyyyy ..this is the Start Of Message
character R..this character indicates that
this is a Reply to a command A..this character
indicates that the status of All probes will be
returned 8..this is the zone number where the
Probes are located. .this is a message
separator yyyyyy.this indicates that ALL Probes
are in the ON state (cr)..this is the reply
terminator character carriage return. RA8ynyny
n .this is the Start Of Message
character Rthis character indicates that this
is a Reply to a command Athis character
indicates that the status of All probes will be
returned 8this is the zone number where the
Probes are located. ..this is a message
separator ynynyn.this indicates that Probes 1
3 5 are in the ON state (cr).this is the
reply terminator character carriage return.
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PC Serial Interface
The serial Port connections for the RJ12 are as
follows. Pin 1 RTS (not implemented) Pin 2
Ground Pin 3 Transmit Pin 4Receive Pin
5Ground Pin 6 CTS (not implemented)
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Homevision Expansion Interface
A new Hardware interface has been developed which
will allow Probe Zone Hub to connect directly
to the HomeVision expansion bus.  This
frees up the 5 Port A outputs and 1 Port B Inputs
that Probe Zone Hub currently uses.  The new
interface connects to HomeVision in the same
manner as the optional serial interfaces, ie via
a 14 way ribbon cable. There are 2 ribbon headers
which allows the user to daisy chain devices as
per existing optional HomeVision devices.  
The interface connects to Probe Zone Hub via a
ribbon cable which has a db9 female connector ,
this connects to the Probe zone Hub db9 male .
The interface obtains its power from the
HomeVision expansion bus . Since its
connected to Probe Zone Hub via the db9 i/o
connector, all signals between these devices are
electrically isolated.   The existing macro
Setup ZoneProbe has to be modified to suit the
IC2 interface and samples can be seen in the next
few pages. Two new variables are required
.IC2_Probe_TX and IC2_Probe_RX. Also a new flag
is required Selected Probe This replaces the
Port B bit 3 status testing command thats
currently used
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Homevision Expansion Interface
Please Note   The "I2C Bus" commands and
the "Memory Access" commands (which allow you
todirectly write and read HomeVision RAM) are
normally disabled in the software.  You must
edit the Windows registry to enable these. You
can use RegEdit to do this.  Go to the following
registry location HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Software /
VB and VBA Program Settings / HomeVision/
Miscellaneous and look for the key
"MemoryAccess".   Change the data value to "True"
andclose the registry.  Restart the HomeVision
software.  The "Memory Access" and "I2C Bus"
commands are located under the "Other" button on
the ActionsEntry Screen.
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New Setup Macro
Below are several pictures of the new setup Zone
Probe Macro. The first one shows the setting up
of the zone. The intro notes have been removed
so that all of the zone setup could be
displayed The second picture shows the setting
up for the required Probe. The intro notes have
also been removed to show the complete setting up
for the probe. The third picture which is the
final part of the Setup Zone and Probe macro
shows the testing of the status of the Probe and
setting/clearing of the new flag Selected
Probe. Also shown is a picture of a sample macro
which is much the same . The only difference is
that a flag is checked instead of a bit in Port B
Status variable. Intro Notes Initialize
variable for zone (or probe) 1 (224) This value
ensures that the input pins are kept high. This
is a requirement of the Philips ic2 chip. This
macro is expecting values of 0 to 7 for zones 1
to 8 so need to adjust variable to suit.
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Setup zone Probe
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Setup Zone Probe
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Setup Zone Probe
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Sample Macro
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HV I/O Expander
Below is a picture of the Homevision I/o
Expander. When configured for the Probe Zone Hub
no terminal blocks are required as the db9 idc
lead is soldered directly onto the pcb. As can
be seen in the picture there are 3 Jumper pins
.These select the address of the device as 8
devices can be connected. The Probe Zone is
normally device 2 and should be delivered setup
as such.
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Contact Details
Company Armagh Electrical Contractors Contact
Frank Mc Alinden Email frankmc_at_internode.on.
net WebSite http//www.armaghelectrical.com.au
/index.html