Im trying to send smart macro triggers to the MSC400 via IRIs this possible? And if so, can anyone tell me how they got it to work? I want to learn triggers into B&K keypads and have the B&K send the triggers through IR back to the 400. But when I tried to connect an IR eye to the 400 and just send the triggers from a 900 I couldnt get it to work.

Fins,
i read you post in the lounge. How many Macros do you need to trigger? Can you use the DC triggers to "trigger" the Macros?

I want to be able to turn the TV in each room on and off from the keypad. There are 4 TVs and 2 macros (one for on and one for off) for each TV, and then an All Off macro that would turn the entire system and all 4 TVs off.

Unfortunately you can not use IR to trigger macros - I learned this the hard way. What I had to do instead is use voltage sensors. This would be a nice feature though for URC to consider adding to the MSC-400.

By any chance do you know if the RTI systems would do it?

Sorry no idea

Technically, you can do this by using a "dummy" component, provided it has discrete power commands. A cheap $29 DVD player would probably do the trick.

The idea here is that you set up your MSC-400 to run a macro, triggeredb by sensing video or voltage from the dummy component. Then, teach the discrete On and OFF IR codes for that dummy component to your keypad.

When the keypad sends the ON IR command to the dummy component, the MSC-400 senses that the dummy component is ON, triggering your macro.

There are probably more elegant ways to do this if I sat down to think about it, but this was the first solution that popped into my head.

We discussed that possibility in the office this morning. I just feel like this is a lazy work around instead of finding a more professional solution.

Why cant the macro triggers be sent via IR into the IR in on the 400?

The RTI RP6 will do it, you use one of their IR commands but you can teach it to the keypad and then get IR, 232, or a combination of them out of the RP6

The easy was to do what you are trying to do is to use a PUM01 ( x10 contact ) and a IR X10 Command Console ( ir to x10).

This is a very easy way to do what you want.

The B&K will have the codes you need.

The MSC-400 wasn't designed to trigger macros via IR. Basically, triggering a smart macro by IR introduces a potential fault into a system that was designed to do everything possible to eliminate these types of faults.

You're certainly not alone in suggesting the feature, however. And yes, I do see the utility in the feature would afford. I know the engineers have looked at the possibility, but it would take, at minimum, a major firmware update.

OK, thanks for the answer. I dont want to put a potential flaw into my programming. However I would like to point out that someone mentioned RTI will allow IR to trigger a macro, so I'd think URC would want to make this work too

I could use this feature as well. Perhaps it would be best to come up with a custom IR protocol that can be loaded into other systems, to guarantee that there won't be any false triggering by random codes.

Yes, and because they already have an IR sensor on the front of the MSC-400, it may be possible to introduce this feature without any hardware changes. Now that would be cool!

Sean

Actually, isnt the sensor on the front just for learning? I was trying to use the connection on the back for an IR eye