How I connected two buildings

[apostolakisl]

Recently someone posted elsewhere that he connected two PLM's to each other with an RS-232 wire to link two wiring phases.  Since they make RS-232 fiber adapters, it is possible that you could link two distant buildings without any copper or power or code issues by putting a plm in each building and running a fiber rs-232 between them.  Haven't tried it.  It has been several years now since I implemented my solution and it is still working great.  I did put the 100ma fuse on the wire.  I also changed out from a on/off module for the rf device in the distant building and switched to an Insteon Hub.  And I hard wired the hub to the power cord.

[larryllix]

Recently someone posted elsewhere that he connected two PLM's to each other with an RS-232 wire to link two wiring phases.  Since they make RS-232 fiber adapters, it is possible that you could link two distant buildings without any copper or power or code issues by putting a plm in each building and running a fiber rs-232 between them.  Haven't tried it.  It has been several years now since I implemented my solution and it is still working great.  I did put the 100ma fuse on the wire.  I also changed out from a on/off module for the rf device in the distant building and switched to an Insteon Hub.  And I hard wired the hub to the power cord.

I think Polyglot is going to resolve this eventually.
Ethernet fiber could be the harware protocol to make a RPi a slave to ISY in a remote location.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

[apostolakisl]

2 hours ago, larryllix said:

I think Polyglot is going to resolve this eventually.
Ethernet fiber could be the harware protocol to make a RPi a slave to ISY in a remote location.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
 

How does the rpi get the signal into the power lines/radio waves?  The only thing I know of is a PLM for that conversion, so somehow you have to connect the rpi to a plm.  You would have to have a usb/rs232 adapter on the rpi I guess.  Then some software on the rpi that receives all the plm messages from the main plm (via ISY) and then pushes them back out the secondary PLM.  And vice versa.  Sounds complex.  That would be great if it could be done and would allow PLM's anywhere in the world to be synchronized.

And I was looking for the post from whoever it was that plugged the two plms together, but can't find it.  Anyone remember that?  Posts like that should go into some sort of reference library (ie the wiki)

[apostolakisl]

I wonder if this would work?  

 

https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Ethernet-Converter-Device-Server/dp/B00FJEHNSO

 

Perhaps you could plug a plm into each of these and configure the ip addresses of each device to connect to the other. 

Or maybe this one:

https://www.amazon.com/ONETAK-Ethernet-Converter-Adapter-Adaptor/dp/B00ATV2DX2/ref=pd_sim_147_3/140-3034441-0809753?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00ATV2DX2&pd_rd_r=3ebded22-1c70-11e9-b31a-c56b62222a9b&pd_rd_w=4qIk4&pd_rd_wg=uhqer&pf_rd_p=18bb0b78-4200-49b9-ac91-f141d61a1780&pf_rd_r=JXWAY0GXV01CZ4D38DVJ&psc=1&refRID=JXWAY0GXV01CZ4D38DVJ

One of the comments says they have two of them linked to each other to use an RS485 device to control another RS485 device over IP (RS485 joystick controlling an RS485 PTZ camera).  Of course that doesn't confirm it is bidirectional since I assume the joystick doesn't get any reponse.

[larryllix]

On 1/19/2019 at 4:24 PM, apostolakisl said:

How does the rpi get the signal into the power lines/radio waves?  The only thing I know of is a PLM for that conversion, so somehow you have to connect the rpi to a plm.  You would have to have a usb/rs232 adapter on the rpi I guess.  Then some software on the rpi that receives all the plm messages from the main plm (via ISY) and then pushes them back out the secondary PLM.  And vice versa.  Sounds complex.  That would be great if it could be done and would allow PLM's anywhere in the world to be synchronized.

<snipped>

Possibly two ISYs with PLMs, running a shared PolyGlot nodeserver that clones variables, programs, and scene operations, at the users choice on a enabling table in the PolyGlot node table. As a expansion method for ISY this software should be built into ISY so multiple ISY installations would not require any bridge hardware or software.

For the immediate future it shouldn't be too hard for  a software coder to write a PloyGlot variable cloner connecting a variable patch between two ISYs. Right now I am sure some have used reciprocal NRs to do this. Not all functions/programs/scenes would need to be extended off site.

I have always thought ISY should support the  Insteon Hub II?, as an alternative to the PLM, that SH could discontinue at a moment's notice. This would allow the Hub/PLM to be anywhere in the world, for a single remote Insteon AP, as well as a single local Insteon AP.  ISY devices would then  require a Local/Remote pathway flag. 

[apostolakisl]

The PLM to PLM would be a whole lot easier.  All Insteon signals would propagate through without having to go through and configure anything.  I've never used a serial to IP converter so I can't say just how well it works

[LFMc]

Aluminum pie pans make cheap, great (pseudo) parabolic reflectors for RF signals. You can get 2-3 times the normal range. I used one on my ISY Zigbee antenna and solved my distance issue easily. Of course you have to point them in the right direction. (-;