Hi All,

I am using 232 to control my PTAE900U. 95% of time it works great. On, Off, Input. But sometimes it takes a few attempts to turn on or off.

This is my first and only 232 control. Any ideas for troubleshooting?

Herb

I haven't worked on one for a while, but I think it ignores commands for 45 seconds after power down and for 10 seconds upon power up. What are you controlling it with? A little more info will help.

I am controlling with an ir to 232 converter from Industrologic.

[Link: industrologic.com]

I have never used the industrologic unit before so I can't attest to its reliability, but most serial devices are 100% unless you have the syntax incorrect. Seeing as you have it working most of the time, I would lean towards the IR portion being the weak link. Try learning the commands into your universal remote or whatever device is sending the IR again to see if you can get cleaner codes. Another option is to use IRTool or MakeHex to enter in the Sony device and functions and it will generate the codes for you.

Like you say, the 232 works 95% of the time so the signal being sent must be formatted correctly.

I used MakeHex to generate the codes and a TSU9600 with extender and IR emitters to get the code to the IR to 232 device. This method is rock solid on everything else I control directly with IR.

I thought IR myself and have experimented with code durration and emitter power. But since the problem is intermittent I have only been able to tell over time that these changes have not seemed to help.

I saw somebody in another post say that the buffer on the receiving device can get full and needs clearing by toggling the power switch. I thought maybe the device could benefit from receiving a get ready signal to make sure it is waitiing for the control signal. But I couldn't find anything like these in the projector's manual.

Herb

One way you could test is to connect the serial to a port on a computer with a null adaptor and hyperterminal. Press the button several times with different variables: lights on, lights off(where ir to serial is), command by itself, command in macro, etc. Now that I think about it, is your command in a macro? If so, try giving a longer delay before and after the IR command that triggers the IR to serial.

As far as the buffer, I have never had an issue like that with panasonic.