Having a bit of a head scratcher here with a customer's system.

I've got two B&K CT600.3s at a customer's house. I'm controlling them with an XP-8. I have the latest 2-way drivers, have checked all the driver settings.

Here is what I am ending up with: One of the CT-600s works perfectly. Conveniently, this is labeled in the system as B&K CT600 #1. The second one, does not. I'm controlling both of them using one-way RS-232 commands. They both control perfectly, but when using anything driver related, the CT600 #1 works perfectly while CT600 #2 does not.

I've been troubleshooting this on my own for about 2 hours now, and have even gone so far as to load up the file for CT600 #1 and put it on CT600 #2 to see if it was some small setting I missed. Then I plugged CT600 #2 into the RS-232 port that CT600 #1 was plugged into. Still nothing.

At this point, I'm wondering if it is a defective CT600 that will need replacing.

One interesting thing is that I do not get feedback, and also any driver commands that I try also do not work. (in this case, trying to use the mute toggle driver command from RTI's driver for the zone I'm set up in)

So another possibility might be that whatever kind of commands RTI uses work for the one and not the other.


Of course, any help greatly appreciated.

It doesn't sound like a bad CT unit because you are able to communicate with both units via 232. I'm pretty sure the driver commands are the standard strings so it doesn't make sense that the CT unit could be the problem. Make sure both CT units have their firmware updated and make sure none of the driver settings are the same. Even if you are not using IP control it might be possible you could have a conflict if both drivers were set to the same IP address. I had an unrelated issue in the beginning with the RS232 port being the same as another driver RS232 port even though I wasn't using that port at the time. It seems like the issue is in the command output or the driver setup.

We've done 3 different systems with 2way on the CT600's with no problems. The systems we have done were all via TCP/IP. It seemed to make it easier once you have a network connection you can communicate to it with the xp8 or configure in bksuite from a laptop without having to connect the serial cabling in and out. When you swapped rs232 ports, did you just change them at the xp8 ports or did you swap them from ct to ct? If at the xp8, you could have a pin configuration in the DB9 or RJ45 or a cable continuity problem.

From what you have posted, I assume you have loaded 2 drivers into the XP-8, you mention 1 is labeled CT-600#1, so the other I guess is labeled CT-600#2.
I believe you have to use 2 RS232 ports on the XP-8, do not use 1 and then try to link the two CT-600's together with their link.
The codes don't change from one to the other, just the port you are sending them out of.
Many here, myself included, have used the 2 way drivers from RTI to control these devices so you shouldn't have issues with the driver commands.
Have you connected to each of the B&K using their set up suite? If you could control each one there you should be OK to control from RTI.
Check your drivers and how you have them set up, confirm your using the right driver (talking to the correct B&K) when assigning a command to a button or macro.
That's all I can think of at the moment.

I now this is pretty basic but are your zones assigned correctly within the CT? Zones A-F should be 11-16.

Not if he wants to control 2 CT's from an XP-8.
1 driver controls zones A-F on CT #1
2nd driver controls zones A-F on CT #2

My point was maybe lexiphanic has one or both of his CT units that currently are set on a different code set (ie codeset 21-26). Therefore one way RS232 would work but the driver control wouldn't.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm going to try assigning them different IPs in the XP-8's software to see if that clears it up. After that I'll update the firmware.

To answer several of the questions, this is a properly configured usable system already. The only thing that doesn't work are driver commands and 2-way feedback. I'm using one way RS-232 commands to actually control them.

Should they already have different IP's?? Are you giving the CT's static addresses??

I've not gotten them to work consistently with IPs, so I haven't bothered setting up a permanent configuration for them. In fact, it worked so sporadically at the time that I wasn't sure if IP setup/control was fully implemented at the time.

B&K released a firmware update that fixed those issues. I had the same results but since I've updated the CT units I haven't had any issues.

I tried giving them different settings in each driver. However, I have both of the CT600s set to Device ID 0. Do you think that could be causing it?

I left the RJ45 connected to the XP-8 in place. I simply swapped the RJ45 going from the DB-9 adapters to the CTs. I also tried switching the RJ45s I have going to each B&K in case it was a bad Ethernet cable.

Ok, still testing. Brought an ethernet cable with me to test out. First I swapped the RTI-B&K DB9 adapters being used for the CTs. Still no 2-way, but I can still control both. Next I swapped the ethernet cable with one I brought from home. Still no dice.

Alright, I downloaded the new B&KcSuite software. I connected to the troubled CT over ethernet and was able to get it's "Software Version". It's 3.12, is that an old version of the firmware or indicative of the new one?