USB to Serial Adapter controlling Denon AVR-2807

[jimmejames]

OK, as the title says I'm trying to get my usb to RS232 adapter to control my Denon AVR-2807. 

Here's what I know:
1) Purchased (2) usb to serial adapters from our favorite famous four letter market place (will provide details for anyone curious which ones I bought, $6.48 for 2 units shipped to US)
2) Connected Denon unit to core via cable

LMCE didn't seem to recognize that the cable had been connected and the receiver was not found when going through the Setup Wizard.

That said, played around with lsusb and found that linux was discovering that the cable was being connected.  Following that, I played with the ruby codes and surprisingly typing in the code:  "/usr/pluto/bin/TestSerialPort -p /dev/ttyUSB2 -P N81 -b 9600 -t "MVUP\r"" caused the receiver's volume to increase.


1) Receiver is controllable  (check)
2) usb to serial cable is compatible with LMCE (check)

Here's where I'm stuck.  As described here:  http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php/Serial_Hack my usb to serial device is being listed as a pci0000 something and not /dev/ttyUSB2.  After applying the hack, no devices are listed in the drop down menu, so I saved the backup file on top of the ListSerialPorts.sh which gave me the list of available port.  When I try the only pci device not used (have one used by zwave and one used by usbuirt) it doesn't send a signal to the receiver.

So I went to this:

I Just want to give an update on my status with Insteon setup, the 7.10 with direct serial port to the hybrid worked without any problem first try, my LinuxMCE 810 Alpha 2.21 with USB2Serial adapter, now is working, with the following modifications:
1) changing default value of "#37 COM port on PC" to "/dev/ttyUSB0"
2) select "pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0+5" from the drop down list of the device data COM Port on PC
3) Created 88_InsteonPLM.sh (for Plug n Play) per Wiki instructions

I attached the data exchanged between LinuxMCE with PLM module if someone interested.

from here:  http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=7054.15


I think if I could get past step 1 of ccousdi's post then everything would work. 

Retyping the questions:
1) How/where do I do step 1 above?
2) How do I test if it is working- if I select TV from the menu should the receiver change to input TV?  This doesn't seem to make sense as that the core has the tv tuners and I am really only going to want LMCE to change the volume on the receiver, turn it off and change the speakers that the audio is output to.

BTW, my house has the patio directly outside of the family room.  So I want to get a set of wireless speakers and change the media scenario in LMCE which causes the receiver to output to the wireless speakers and the speakers in the family room.  I'm hoping that any lag between the transmitter and receiver in the speakers is negligible and there will appear to be no sync issues.

Any suggestions or posts that I missed in the forums that talks about doing this?

[fastie81]

Hi

I had a big problem with the usb converter..
I got it working with the TESTSERIAL just like you but lmce does not like it..
So just so make sure I did not do something stuped I got a SERIAL card and test it again.
LMCE picked it strait away.
So if I am you I would test that is you can.
I really dig in to finding out what is up and it looks like a lot of the usb converters now are emulating a serial port. But then I also have to say there is a lot of guys that got it working with no problem..

So I know it is not helping you much but you may want to give it a if you can..

C

[tkmedia]

I had great luck with usb-serial adapters until very recently.   After a reboot my receiver connected  to the adapter would not recognize any lmce commands. After much digging i found using the test-serial tool would successfully send commands to the receiver, strangely enough the lmce commands starting working as well. Unfortunately after reboot same issue would occur. Running the testserialport command  would reliably give control back to lmce for the adapter.


This on 0810 btw.



Tim

[jimmejames]

Thanks for the replies, but I don't think the issue is with the usb->serial adapter, I think the issue is with telling LMCE which adapter to use.  It seems like if I could go into some configuration file and replace what is there with "/dev/ttyUSB2" then I could select that from the drop down menu and go.  This seems to be what the serial hack wiki page is addressing.

Yes, this is 810 alpha 2.2something.
No, I don't have the skills not to duck-tape a solution.  Hopefully by documenting the steps required to complete what I'm doing, someone could turn that into a script so manual modifications are not required.

[gadget]

I have been hacking the ListSerialPorts.sh script for a differnt issue but if you want to try the change and see if it resolves the problem.

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=8407.0

gadget

[jimmejames]

Thanks gadget, I'll give it a shot when I get home.

[UNi]

My Denon AVC-A1SRA (RS232) shows up as pci0000:00....and I use a Serial to USB.

I couldn't get it recognized until I unplugged the unit, then ran the Setup wizard and plugged it in when she said to and then it was PNP. 

Once you do get it recognized, change 8N1 to N81 since that still is what shows up in the template. 


-UNi

[jimmejames]

Maybe I'll try that first- don't have speakers hooked up to the core as that I basically use it headless anyways and I didnt' try to read her lips.  I'll try this first and then gadget's suggestion if no luck.

Thanks

[jimmejames]

UNi-  no luck deleting the device and trying to let Sarah discover it when plugged in.  At least I don't know that it worked.  How do you test that it is working?  I manually set the device on CD and told Sarah that I used the DVD input.  When I play media- take a song and I hit play from the UI, shouldn't LMCE tell the receiver to go to the DVD input?

gadget- I'm going to try your suggestion tonight.

[UNi]

You can go into Web Admin, Devices, and see it listed there if it installed correctly.  Then, once you click on it in the left pane, in the right pane you'll have "send command to device".  In there you can check a box "request delivery confirmation", that will tell you if it's a success, but you'll obviously see whether LMCE turned it off.

My guess is that it's not showing up in Web Admin, under Devices.  I think you ruled out that the serial port is turned off in the bios of the machine, didn't you?

-UNi

[jimmejames]

Gadget-

Replacing line 15 with what you had written now gives me a choice between the /dev/ttyUSB* which is great.  Unfortunately the boxes that Sarah presents are not large enough to read what's written, you get at most "/dev/ttyU"

So I'm in the process of trying them.

Thanks again for the help

[gadget]

Hi jimmejames,

Use web admin  -> wizard -> AV Devices and you can select the COM port there.

gadget

[jimmejames]

Thanks-

Tried that- set it to the /dev/ttyUSB2 that I am able to use the command line to send messages to the receiver. 

In the web admin pages, when I try to figure out which commands are right for my device, the command is send to either the core (Device #1) or the core/hybrid (my device #20).  Is this correct?  Is the command supposed to be send to the device that the receiver is connected or is the command supposed to be sent to the receiver itself by way of the port on the MD/Core.   My receiver is device #136, shouldn't the command be sent there?

I'm getting a usb->serial that has the PL2303 driver that this forum:  http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=8226.0 confirms works.


When I get that working, I will get back to this other cable...

Thanks for you help

[UNi]

You select the device itself (the receiver) in the Left, Device View, and then in the right pane, you have all the settings (template) for the device and you can then select "send command to device" at the top of the right pane.  If this isn't clear, I could attach a screen shot.

-UNi