Overview

[Forumadmin]

Frank, how about an overview of your system. The benefits of it and where you may end up with new products for it.
Maybe the major differences between each of your products would be a good starter.

[Frank Mc Alinden]

Hi Ross

Frank, how about an overview of your system. The benefits of it and where you may end up with new products for it.
Maybe the major differences between each of your products would be a good starter.

Ok i will try and give a brief description of each and the main difference between FirM and FirM Jr and then the Probe System

Firstly FirM , FirM Jr and Probe System are all cat5 based systems
and rely on the user having a structured wiring system in place..

FirM

FirM (38khz) is a hardware IR TRANSPORT device which was initially designed with Homevision HA Controller in mind...It allows Homevision to send Infrared signals to any of its 8 tx zones....It also has the ability to inform Homevision which zone of its 8 zones a received ir signal came from...Having the ability firstly to transmit to different zones allows users to control identical equipment in different zones (rooms)..Having the ability of identifying the zone an ir signal came from allows users to use the same remote for any identical equipment and Homevision will respond sending ir to the correct zone...also a remote used in zone 1 for dvd control could be used in zone 2 for vcr control...Im currently using a cheap 6 button remote to control my cbus lighting and can roam from room to room controlling lights with this same remote...as FirM reports the receiving zone so Homevision knows which lights need to be controlled ...


Recent dev work on FirM

1: Using the Usbuirt for tx zone control allowing the Usbuirt to send its ir to any of FirMs 8 zones....

Future dev work on FirM

Allow xantech receivers to be connected to FirM but with zone receive identication.....



FirM Jr (38khz)

FirM Jr is a simple ir repeater system...which does not require a HA Controller to operate...Any ir received from room receivers ir repeated back to FirM Jr as well as room receivers...Doesnt have zone receive identification like FirM but does have the busy indicator like FirM to indicate to all users that ir is being sent...Up to 6 FirM Jr receivers can be connected to FirM Jr ....and there is provision to inject ir say from Homevision , Usbuirt ,CBUS ,KAT5 etc via an opto isolated input....


Probe System
This system is used to monitor the on / off status of equipment such as tv,s dvd players vcr,s etc

It uses 3 pieces of hardware

1: Probe Zone Hub
This is the main controller which when requested returns the status of a probe to a host Controller such as Homevision , xPLHAL etc....The probe status can be requested via i/o connections at the rear OR a serial connection on the front facia panel... there is led indication on the frontfacia panel to indicate the zone number and probe number that was last requested and its status..

2:Probe Zone Monitor

This device is located in each zone (room) and this allows probes to be connected to it via the stereo sockets at the rear...Up to 6 probes can be connected to the Probe Zone Monitor and there are bi coloured leds on the front facia panel for status indication for each Probe............

Probes
Currently there are 2 probes available

1:video probe
2:led probe

The video probe connects to the video out of equipment such as vcr,s dvd players etc to monitor the on / off status of equipment...

The led probe is used for equipment that doesnt have a video out connector
but has an on / off led indicator instead ...

Currentr dev work on Probe system..

1:Working on a small pir probe to indicate that a zone has been vacated after x amount of minutes.......

Frank

[Forumadmin]

Thanks for the overview Frank. Quite alot for me to absord right now. I'll revist later and take my time.

Thanks again the "xantech receivers to be connected to FirM but with zone receive identication" sounds pretty neat.

cheers

[Forumadmin]

FirM Jr is a simple ir repeater system...which does not require a HA Controller to operate...Any ir received from room receivers ir repeated back to FirM Jr as well as room receivers...Doesnt have zone receive identification like FirM but does have the busy indicator like FirM to indicate to all users that ir is being sent...Up to 6 FirM Jr receivers can be connected to FirM Jr ....and there is provision to inject ir say from Homevision , Usbuirt ,CBUS ,KAT5 etc via an opto isolated input....
Frank does FirM handle queing? What I mean is does it que IR transport or what happens when 2 people fire at the same time?

[Frank Mc Alinden]

Frank does FirM handle queing? What I mean is does it que IR transport or what happens when 2 people fire at the same time?

No it doesnt que the received signals....When 2 people send ir at the same time the ir message gets garbled......Thats the reason theres a "Busy" led on each zone receiver it informs all users that someone is sending ir and to wait until the Busy led extinguishes....
HTH
Frank

[Frank Mc Alinden]

Thanks again the "xantech receivers to be connected to FirM but with zone receive identication" sounds pretty neat.

Spent the last couple of days trying to get a xantech 291-10 receiver and a knoll ir-10 receiver to work wIth FirM....have now got both working connected to my test FirM via a box of cat5 cable (200m+)...

My FirM receivers (unmodulated ir) and KAT5 (modulated ir) both worked straight off when connected to the 200m+ of cat5 , xantech receiver and the knoll receiver both required a buffer chip to located in the cat5 fly lead adaptor box...

Frank