I have used RS-232 codes to control the last two generation of fujitsu plasma with great success. This new generation of plasma the "58" series the one's with no tuners, the RS-232 codes seem to be troublesome / intermittent. Not sure whats happening but when you select the macro that contains the rs-232 string along the other codes to turn on the rest of the system the plasma turns on about 50% of the time. If you go back and run the macro again the plasma will then turn on, if it didn't turn on the first time. Sometime it take three runs. It will always turn off, when using the RS-232 string. I know these models are new but I was wondering if anybody else has run across this and found a solution.

I am using RTI, T-2+ and RP-6

Thanks

Just did one the other day, with no problems.

Are you doing double "Go" Commands before each macro... I'm on my home Laptop, so I don't have the commands in front of me. G/r or whatever it is...

Hi Andy
I am sending

@G\r (.2 second delay between characters)
.2 second delay
%A0001\r (.2 second delay between characters)
1.0 second delay
@Q\r (.2 second delay between characters)

I have use this set up for over a year and no problem ( I have added the 1 second delay and the @Q\r in the last 90 days to the 51 series with not problems) on the 40 series and 51 series.

Here's the really strange part, I have one of the 58 series with this string running for the last 3 weeks and its fine. the last two that I have installed have this problem understanding only the power on command, power off is fine?

I tried to add more delay between the characters and also more delay between the strings, nether worked.

Maybe I could repeat the power on string?

Next I'm going to switch out the RP-6 to see what happens, then try to retype the string and see what happens then

I talked with fujitsu today and this is the first time they heard of this.

Though I would check in with you guys to see what thoughts you might have and if any one else has seen this yet.

A real brain twister.

Have you tried hooking up your serial port to hyperterminal to see what you actually sending to the Fuji? This would tell you where the problem lies.

I actually had this same intermittent issue, you explained it exactly what was happening to me. In the end, I added a 2nd @G\r to the beginning of the string and its 100% working now. Bandaid, but that's what I came up with.

I was starting to do just that and noticed that the client was thinking did i buy a lemon. so I decided to do the hyperterminal test another time, and run the remote in stand alone mode till I figure out the rs 232 problem.

DHarmon, I new I couldn't be the only one. I was just thinking about something similar, but I was thinking about sending the "on" command twice. I will give that a try, thanks so much. I will post my finding here. It may take a few days to get back to that client's house. I bet this thread saves a lot of us from going crazy and what the hell could be wrong. Did you by any chance try sending the on command twice. just wondering.

I had posted about this on IP and there was some good insight from some members. To be honest, it got to the point were I so frustrated and I finally tried my fix and it worked, so I never really investigated it further. It is a unit that is in our showroom, so I plan on trying some things when I get a chance. Would love to hear what you worked out.

Yeah, I have been doing the same thing

I got the on/off to work but i could get the volume to work. did anybody else have the same problem

What models of the Fuji are issues? Right now I have 3 units home theater I am building in my office for a client and getting ready to do some RS232. I would do IR but I do not want the emitters sticking on the front of the TVs. I should have a chance to play with this within a few days. I have a VB.NET program I wrote that allows me to connect one serial port to my PC and one to the RP-6. I can monitor the serial commands as they are transmitted from the RP-6 to the remote device. I will run this as hard as I can and see if I can recreate the problem.

Frankly, I was very confused when I read the RS232 specifications. It appears the protocol is using RTS/CTS handshaking and running at 4800 baud with a 8 second timeout to retransmit or some crazy stuff. Either they are using a cheap UART or the engineer was paranoid when he wrote the specification.

What you are describing sounds like it could be a buffer overflow problem. Is everyone just using 3 wire RS232 or did you fake out the hardware handshaking on the TV serial port by tieing together DTR/DSR and RTS/CTS? If it's just a 3 wire connection, it could be a problem. Perhaps they have changed UARTs or have some timing issue that did not appear in previous models. I can only speculate at this point.

The Fuji service department told me that RTI was being used with 3 wire but didn't tell me if I need to modify the serial connector at the TV end.

I'll post info as I find out more. Please continue to post relevant info.


For those of you not familar with the inerds of RS232.
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There is a chip called a UART (Universal Asychronus Receiver/Transmitter) that transmits and receives a serial stream. Serial data like IR sends one bit of information at a time at a predetermined rate (Baud). Both sides must predetermine the baud rate and the number of bits to be sent. There is also some other parity and stop bit information that can be set but most things today use 8 bits No stop 1 parity bit for transmission. This will support the full (extended) ASCII character set of 256 characters (00-FF HEX). The old 7 bit stuff would only support 128 characters or 00-7F HEX. In the hardware world the UART will generally map to a memory location on the microprocessor's memory bus. When the UART recieves 8 bits of data an interrupt is generated on the processor and it will read the memory location of the UART. Once this happens the UART assert a signal to the remote UART and is ready to receive the next stream of bits. Is is very important that receiving side has ample time to process the data before more bits are transmitted down the line otherwise data will be overwritten.

RS232 often uses flow control to control the data from filling up the buffer on the remote end. To keep both sides transmissions in tact, flow control is often used to communicate weather or not it is okay to send data. There are two types of flow control hardware and software based. Thankfully most of the stuff we use for AV does not use flow control. Hardware flow control is implemented using extra pins on the RS232 connector.

By asserting signals on the RS232 bus both sides can control the "flow" of the serial stream. The way is works is that one side assert a signal to Request to Send and the other side asserts a signal when it is clear to send. There is a bit more to it but this is the general idea.

The other method XON/XOFF is sofware based where the ASCII XON/XOFF characters are inserted into the data stream when the buffer is getting full. Long long ago I wrote hardware drivers and had to deal with this stuff. It was quite a mess.

If you read most of the RS232 protocols that deal with AV equipment they recommend a delay after sending a command. This is usually sufficient to allow the remote device to process the data and get it's buffer cleared for the next string.
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BruceWayne,
Volume control on the fujitsu plasma is very easy just need the code. First the RS-232 code for Volume up is %A32C10\r Right Click on the Vol up on the control then choose properties, then rs-232, Baud rate 4800, Party None, Data Bits 8, Stop Bites 1. Delay between characters 2 milliseconds. click sustain, then delay between repeats 0.2 or whatever, enter the rs-232 string, done

The rs-232 code for volume down is %A328C11\r

%A328C10\r would be volume up, you missed the 8 :-)

Thanks, I was typing a little to fast.

RTI CM232's have always been 3 wire so this is an arbitrary question