This customer's system consisted of an AVR zone and six Speakercraft MZC66 zones with the MKP push-button on wall controls. On top of this is an RTI T3 with RP6 that's controlling the MZC via 232 (using the RSA module). The T3 has control of the theatre and any of the MZC zones, and the keypads have their usual control over their own zones and sources.
I wanted to make it so when any zone, including the theatre, was first turned on, the source equipment would power on, and when the last zone turns off, the sources turn off.
The MZC can do this very simply under the Events section of EZtools (Last Zone Off and First Zone On events) but that doesn't account for the theatre, which shares all its sources with the MZC.
The solution I came up with was making the "First zone on" and "Last zone off" macros send a single trigger command to the RP6. Now that zone power status info is being kept track of at the RP6, if the theatre is on when the last MZC zone turns off and the "Last zone off" event fires, a "theatre is on" flag can stop the source components powering down.
When I tested this using the T3, I found the components weren't powering on and off at all. I was turning the MZC on by sending "Zone X select source Y" 232 commands.
I then tried IR control for source select and power off (by right clicking the buttons in EZtools and exporting the pronto hex) and then it worked.
I figure that the 232 equivalent (emulate button ID X press) would probably trigger the last off/first on events, but I didn't have the time to find or construct the hex I needed for all these commands.
So in summary:
- Turning an MZC on with the 232 commands for "Zone X Source Y" will not cause the "First Zone On" event programmed in EZTools to fire
- Turning an MZC off with the 232 commands for "Zone X OFF" will not cause the "Last Zone OFF" event to fire
- Using the 232 commands for emulating source and power button presses MAY cause these events to fire
Also if you're having trouble with the RSA, have a good look at your cables. I'm really mad at the guy that printed "patch" on the side of what turned out to be the crossover cable I was trying to use to connect the MZC and RSA!
