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smarty
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| Posted: October 15 2006 at 18:41 | IP Logged
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I've been wrestling with this question a while now.
As an FYI...PH and my Elk each have their own Powerlincs connected to them.
When I use PH's device status screen or a PH macro to turn on/off an insteon light (successfully), my Elk does not see the light turn on/off.
When I change the light at the switch, both PH and Elk see the change. When I change the light with the Elk, both PH and the switch see the change.
My question is how do I set up links to tell the Elk PLC that I am turning on a light (by using the PH PLC)? I have tried setting up a group in the PH PLC containing both the light and the Elk PLC, but this has not worked for me. Seems like they all should be cross linked for this to work, but I guess I am not doing it right.
Anyone else had luck setting up Elk Groups?, Or having Elk "sense" when PH turns on/off a light?
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dhoward
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| Posted: October 17 2006 at 17:52 | IP Logged
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Steve,
Ive been thinking and thinking on this and may have come up with why. It would take an answer from Elk to confirm however.
From what I understand of the Elk, it's support for Insteon messages is limited. This is no fault of Elk's as the Insteon PLC is a very difficult animal to program for. They cant use the SDM (not sure if this is good or bad  ) and must connect directly to a serial PLC and use low level communications.
This is my theory. When a light is switched locally, a group broadcast command is sent from the switch as long as it's linked as a controller to something. Obviously the Elk is able hear and interpret these commands. The Elk itself is able to send direct Insteon commands (Devices 1 to 192) and also able to address the first 64 Insteon PLC groups (devices 193 to 255).
When PowerHome controls a device directly from the Device Status screen or throught he macro INSTEON command, this is a direct command. I don't believe the Elk is able to interpret these "direct" incoming commands (would require more programming for the Elk and would not directly benefit them since switches don't send these types of commands). I believe that the Elk is only able to "interpret" incoming group commands. However, this would not work for PowerHome turning on group commands either since the Elk knows absolutely nothing about intra-device linking. All it would see and register is that the PLC connected to PowerHome turned on or off.
Sooo, I don't think that any amount of linking is going to help out here. Unless the PowerHome PLC is able to spoof the from address (that won't happen) or Elk makes changes to interpret direct commands (I don't think you'll get to see PH PLC group commands as that would require the ELK to know all the PLC group link information), I don't think it will happen. Again, this is assuming that the Elk operates as I believe.
Dave.
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smarty
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| Posted: October 18 2006 at 09:02 | IP Logged
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Thanks for this reply Dave.
Hope you don't mind, but I would like to link to this thread from the Elk Dealer forum (since I also asked this question over there).
Again, really appreacite your good work 
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dhoward
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| Posted: October 18 2006 at 21:57 | IP Logged
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Steve,
No problem on the linking. Let us know if they come back with something.
Dave.
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PeterNSteinmetz
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| Posted: June 14 2007 at 19:40 | IP Logged
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I don't know if anyone has attempted this, but this discussion reminds me.
It looks like the masking of other Insteon device addresses in a PLC, such
as the modem, is performed by the firmware.
Doesn't this mean that one could come up with a set of firmware that
wouldn't mask the addresses, thus allowing access to all Insteon messages
on the wire?
This might not even be that hard, say, with the modem device, rather than
a controller. If the firmware could be disassembled, it could likely be
patched to skip this masking?
Perhaps more useful for the serial version of the controller, since that is
used by Elk and others.
Has anyone cracked open a modem to see what processor is inside?
cheers,
Peter
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MrGibbage
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| Posted: June 17 2007 at 18:02 | IP Logged
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Smarty, my setup is similar to yours: two PLCs, one for the Elk and one for PH. How do you set up links for your Elk PLC? When I add a new Insteon device to my system, I also want the elk to know about it. What do you do when adding new devices to your setup?
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Topic: Elk doesn’t see PH Insteon Control
