Visonic Powermax Powerlink protocol description

[jimmi]

Finally I made some progress:
For the dump in my last post I found out, that I was dumping with 16 Bit. Therefore every first and second byte are interchanged.
My second problem was the way I was sending the commands: I was using "echo -e '\x0D\xA1\x00...", but actually it required parameter "-n" as well: "echo -en '\x0D\xA1\x00...' ".
Looks like the PowerMax Pro with my firmware always sends these 0x00 0x58 etc. when idle.
For me it was not necessary to do an enrollment, I could just send the command to arm the PowerMax. It was successfully armed.
Thanks a lot for your support.

[uAlex73]

Good News it is working now

BTW: you don't need to buy the powerlink, but the serial connector visonic is normally the 'easiest' way of connecting it ... that one works out of the box. I use both, the serial connector and a usb to ttl, and the serial is more stable then the usb-to-ttl on my system (running virtualized) ...

[oak]

Hi,

I found this discussion a few days ago, I have a PowerMax+. I connected a ESP8266 to the serial port of the PM, and it works perfect!
At the moment I'm running "serial to tcp" on the ESP8266 (included in the example when you use the Arduino IDE), so to talk to the PM i just telnet to it.

In order to learn the protocol I've written a simple c# program to read events e.t.c....but the goal is to write a program for the ESP8266 so that it doesn't need a computer. I'm also looking at creating push notifications to my android and iphone. The ESP8266 doesn't support https, so I'm looking for some solution that works with http.

An ESP8266 is just ~$2 on ebay, I don't think you can web enable the PM any cheaper than that

Have anyone here played with the ESP8266 together with the PM?

[jimmi]

I'm currently working on such a project. I'm programming the esp8266 to be able to arm/disarm the PM and to query the status of all connected zones.
I made quite some progress already, but I will still need few more weeks (hopefully *g*).

[bigbugbug]

Great Board!!! I've been working on ESP8266 and raspberry pi with powermax for few weeks. So far I have accomplished arming/disarming from a web page, sending SMS/Email message when alarm is armed, disarmed or alarm triggered to group of subscribers. My next goal is build the ESP8266 into the powermax and allow binary down to esp8266. This way, I don't have to take out the ESP8265 each time I need to upload a new version of the code.

[Robby]

After some time of inactivity on my node.js project for Synology, I decided to pick up the code again to make some improvements.

Is it possible to get the keyfob type (MCT-234 / MCT-237) from the panel?
My code already downloads the keyfob settings having the keyfob id's in it. Is there a way to determine the keyfob type from this info, like it can be done with the sensor type read from the zone info?

[bartbakels]

Hi,

I am working on a general use Labview application to interface the visonic alarms. I am almost there, got all sensors reporting, system statusses etc. HOwever i have trouble detecting an actual alarm? The system state flag Alarm is not being triggered when my panel is in alarm. I dont know why.

What i do see is A7 messages wich contain Log events Perimeter alarm or interior alarm, which can be used. I was wondering which method u guys use to detect an ALARM?

regards

Bart

[Robby]

Hi Bart

In my project I am using the A7 (panel) message to detect actual alarm conditions, which works fine for me.
This message contains the zone/user as well as the log event. Using these values you can determine what actually caused the alarm.
The panel status itself will be something like 'armed home' or 'armed away'.

[bartbakels]

Thanks,

Just to make sure

I openend a thread regarding my universal Visonic Powermax solution here domoticaforum.eu/viewtopic.php?f=68& ... mp;t=11129

regards

Bart

[bartbakels]

Code: Select all

0d a4 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 80 00 00 43 96 0a


this should be sent to the powermax to switch on X15. Byte8 means on; Byte10 is X15

Code: Select all

0d a4 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 43 96 0a


this should be sent to powermax to switch off X01. Byte8 means on; Byte9 is X01

Code: Select all

0d a5 00 04 00 01 00 00 00 00 12 80 43 7f 0a


this is sent from powermax to indicate X10 status. Byte11 means X01 and X04 are on; Byte12 means X15 is on.

HI,

it seems to me that the first is the PGM and the following are the 15 X10 outputs. Is this correct?

BTW can someone tell me for which actions I need to send the panel in programming/download mode? I don't think this is really needed?

regards

Bart

[thefrip]

Indeed this is correct. I just tested it with my PowerMax Pro and it works perfectly. Very useful to re-use the PGM output. I added a relay to fully isolate the device I control through the PGM output from the PowerMax and it works like a charm.

L.

[bartbakels]

Dear all,

is there also an possibility to trigger the Alarm over RS232?

This could enable us to sound the alarm on a user alarm.

Bart

[Rene]

Download mode is required to read the EEPROM. From the EEPROM you can get all enrolled zones, keyfobs, users, pin codes, type of sensors used for which zone and other configuration items.

[bartbakels]

Download mode is required to read the EEPROM. From the EEPROM you can get all enrolled zones, keyfobs, users, pin codes, type of sensors used for which zone and other configuration items.

Rene,

I am not really sure if download mode is needed for reading, when i send the requests for panel version and type and zone config i get this information even if I am not in programming mode. Probably it is only needed for writing parameters to the config table.

In addition does anyone have an idea howto trigger the Alarmsystem via RS-232?

thanks in advance

Bart

[Rene]

On some versions of the powermax pro you indeed do not need to login, on other versions and the powermax plus you have to. Actually not having to login is a security vulnerability, you are able to get the pins of all users from the eeprom.