Feel free to spend all your time making the Concord4 work. In the meantime, SmartThings is now a credible alarm system and the ideal path forward is to replace the old with the new not patch it. Putting a battery backup on your node0 rack is not exactly rocket science or uncommon. It’s standard practice. The problem of the ThingShield unit being in limbo is very legitimate however, but appears temporary as you posted above.
I did waste many a month trying to make the things in this thread work. Maybe another few months and I would have gotten past it. The serial interface for the Concord 4 is horrible. Not worth going back to the 1990s to fix it, and it would have been FAR more expensive to get alarm techs out to try to figure out what was wrong with the serial I/O than everything I did put together.
I appreciate both sides here. Since the Concord unit was installed and operational I wasn’t willing to just throw it out and start from scratch. With the help and insight @chuckv08 gave me I was able to get my unit up and accessible. I wasn’t able to integrate into ST yet, but my main goal was to be able to monitor and arm/disarm/configure the unit remotely which I can do now.
Below is my working setup. I found a AM module for $45 on eBay. From there, I’ve connected the Concord 4 to a server running home automation software to interface with the unit. Since I don’t have a land line, I added my ooma device for the call out feature. This works for my needs and I hope to link what I have to ST one day. It’s still a work in progress, but the key for now is, it works for me. In the next few months, I’ll swap out the server I have with an RPi3 and go from there. Thanks to this thread, as it got me on my way.
I’ve the automation module hooked ( keypad says bus failure am2 sometimes …) and I’ve got a raspberry pi zero w handled the serial output. All I’ve been able to see on this output is “020204” which means “Automation Event Lost” according to the docks. I’ve tried to send Dynamic Data Refresh commands to no avail.
From what I understand, you will see a bus failure when your not talking to the automation module. I will get this too if my automation software is not running or when I power cycle the security system and the automation software is not up and listening. I have since ran out of my trial period and have not moved over to the RPi3 yet. I’ll presume you have wired up he AM correctly as its pretty straight forward. My guess is the AM is not detecting your rasperberry pi. I’ve seen where others have written simple programs to send ACK back to the automation module to make it happy. Thats about the extent of my knowledge thus far.
I assumed that the automation module handled ACKing the messages from system but I’ll try anything. Easy enough to whip up more python to ACK all the messages.
I’m also going to double check wiring, but all of the lights seem correct and I’m getting data over serial so I feel like it’s connected properly. I didn’t do anything with the system itself - no entering installer/master codes or manipulating devices. I powered it all down, installed the module, and powered back up.
I gave up on using an arduino last year and instead just used a USB Serial
cable to a raspberry pi. I posted the code up if you are interested, dont
really have time go over the details. Its been running fine in my house
for quite a while.
Hi Scott, do you have a link to the USB serial cable you used? I have 2 old ones here but they did not work. I’d like to order on Amazon but want to make sure I get one that works properly. Thank you
It looks like Interlogix no longer has the protocol document on their website (or they’ve moved it somewhere difficult to find). Would someone be willing to send me their pdf copy or point me to somewhere else it’s hosted? Thanks!
In case anyone else comes to this thread, the solution proposed by @sdozier above works. The steps are:
Get a Raspberry Pi with a RS232 serial->USB cable
Get a Superbus 2000 automation unit
Hook it all up
Use the code he provided, or my forked version which has more recent fixes
In the .conf, update the IDs as specified. In the .py, update the mapping to friendly zone names as specified. In general you’ll want to customize all of the zones specified with your own
@lovejotd yes, with Smart Home Monitoring it can send you a notification + SMS when any door / alarm goes off when the system is armed. You will also see the status within ST app and the history of all zones. So even when disarmed, if someone opens a door you will see it’s open, and in the history you’ll see when it opened / closed.
@lovejotd yes that appears to be it, the same one I bought, Superbus 2000 automation module. For the Pi, my suggestion is you buy a kit like this one:
That’s what I bought. It came with NOOBS pre-installed on it, and from there you can pick your OS (I chose Raspbian Debian) and it has a case so you can mount it, and such. You will also require a RS232 -> USB cable, something like this:
Once you have all of that hooked up, you should be able to follow the concord4 steps to install the various things to make it all work together.
@Chris_Cavey and @sdozier I’m also trying to get my raspberry pi communicating with the Superbus 2000 AM, but I can’t seem to send messages to it. I have the rs232 to usb hooked to the pi and have @sdozier’s concordsrv.py running (thanks for that btw!), but I keep getting the following:
Concord 4 Automation Server v2.0
2017-08-24 15:14:10,369 [concordsvr.py:start_logger()] - INFO - Logging started [LEVEL: INFO]...
2017-08-24 15:14:10,372 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelState: connecting
2017-08-24 15:14:10,373 [concordsvr.py:refreshPanelState()] - INFO - Querying panel for state (Concord 4 panel device startup)
2017-08-24 15:14:10,374 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: state: exploring
2017-08-24 15:14:10,375 [concordsvr.py:logger()] - INFO - Listening for HTTP(S) connections on port: 8066
2017-08-24 15:14:10,879 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelType: Concord
2017-08-24 15:14:10,880 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelIsConcord: True
2017-08-24 15:14:10,880 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelSerialNumber: 626695
2017-08-24 15:14:10,881 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelHwRev: G1
2017-08-24 15:14:10,881 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelSwRev: 9013
2017-08-24 15:14:10,882 [concord.py:send_message()] - WARNING - Resending message, attempt 2: '020204'
2017-08-24 15:14:11,383 [concord.py:send_message()] - WARNING - Resending message, attempt 3: '020204'
2017-08-24 15:14:11,885 [concord.py:maybe_resend_message()] - ERROR - Unable to send message (timeout), too many attempts (3): '020204'
2017-08-24 15:14:12,388 [concord.py:send_message()] - WARNING - Resending message, attempt 2: '022022'
2017-08-24 15:14:12,892 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelType: Concord
2017-08-24 15:14:12,893 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelIsConcord: True
2017-08-24 15:14:12,894 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelSerialNumber: 626695
2017-08-24 15:14:12,895 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelHwRev: G1
2017-08-24 15:14:12,896 [concordsvr.py:updateStateOnServer()] - INFO - Panel Information: panelSwRev: 9013
2017-08-24 15:14:12,897 [concord.py:send_message()] - WARNING - Resending message, attempt 3: '022022'
2017-08-24 15:14:13,399 [concord.py:maybe_resend_message()] - ERROR - Unable to send message (timeout), too many attempts (3): '022022'
It seems like I can read serial but not write. I’ve tried multiple straight-through rs232-usb adapters with no luck. Any ideas?
Matt,
Its possible its your automation module. I had a bad one myself and
unfortunately had to buy another module. You can test your RS-232 by
doing a serial loopback test: http://www.ni.com/tutorial/3450/en/ . I
suspect if you disconnect the cable from the module and loop the pins on
the rs-232 cable, you will see 022022 go out and be received in the logs if
the cable is good.
Thank you for your quick reply! I checked the cable and everything is fine on that end. I’m trying to get the ebay seller to exchange it for another. I’ll report back once I receive another one.
