1/27/2024 0 Comments Red giant master serial![]() ![]() Now that I could control the projector via MQTT, it was time to get it into SmartThings. See the fourth screenshot for the fixed settings. Changing this to timeout instead of look for character and split the command up resolved the serial problems I was encountering. The “Split Input” function is where I was struggling. The final output to the Serial port is then sent to the projector and the command is completed. The now altered message payload then moves on to the Formula node where the payload is altered to contain the correct characters required to establish the Carriage Return and Line Feed that the projector requires to complete the command. See the second image for what this looks like. “Change the message payload from On, Off, or Status, to the proper command for the projector”. When the command comes through, it moves to the Change node where three rules exist. In this first image, the MQTT node on the top left listens to the smartthings/Projector/switch topic for an “on” or “off” command from SmartThings. There is no documentation on this anywhere that I can find, so this is the primary reason I am making this post… Hopefully someone else doesn’t hit the same frustration points as me. Questions to various Node-Red enthusiasts resulted in no progress, until one hero stepped in and said “based on the debugging logs, have you tried just… not sending a carriage return?” Editing some information in the flow allowed the carriage return to send at an earlier segment of the flow in a Formula, and then changing the Serial port to not Split Input based on character detection resolved this. \r\n, \r, \n, hammering on the keyboard, screaming in frustration… None of it worked. I won’t provide specific step by steps for installing the necessary software linked above, but I will tell you about the things I encountered that threw me for a loop, node pun intended…įor the last several days I’ve been struggling to get serial commands to send the proper carriage returns that the projector requires as part of the command format for controlling all aspects of the device. I originally started this project on a Raspberry Pi, but due to my lack of patience, I ended up re-purposing the HASS.IO NUC back to Windows since I planned to use the system for Blue Iris as well as the lower impact Mosquitto, etc. I’ve had a MQTT broker for a while now, but it was literally just a plugin for HASS.IO on the NUC and I never dug into it beyond the installation. I’ve never touched MQTT or Node-Red before, so this was a huge learning experience for me. Intel NUC (serving various purposes other than this project) The goal: “Alexa, turn on the movie theater” or “Honey? Would you queue up the Cinema Experience with this movie?” I finally decided that enough was enough, let’s make it happen. I ran into some issues with the Pi, and was never able to get that project running again properly as I had no development experience and couldn’t figure out how to get things to talk the way I want. When we first set this up, a friend of mine wrote a small Python to Serial interpreter, and I ran that on my Raspberry Pi with an HTTP device in SmartThings to control power on/off. Manual control of the projector in an automated house is anathema, but we’ve basically been living with that for a long time now… It’s time to get things truly integrated. The main theater components are tucked in the furnace room, so the Harmony Hub is not impeded when IR blasting that equipment. When we installed the HTC Vive base stations in the basement, this caused interference with the Harmony remote, so IR control of the projector followed. As no one has made a Control4 to SmartThings bridge yet, the Ethernet option went out the window. It features four methods for control: Direct button control, IR Remote, Ethernet (Control 4), or Serial. It had less than 100 hours of use on it, so I was beyond thrilled to haul it home and hang it from the ceiling. I picked up a Vivitek D963HD business projector for cheap through my workplace when it was removed from use during a remodel. One of the pieces that was missing was the ability to control the projector from the SmartThings platform. It’s been a great couple of years, getting plenty of use for everything from Superbowl to Halloween Horror Fests for the neighbors and everything in between. Quite a while back, my wife and I converted our 23x15 basement into a movie theater with a projector and motorized movie screen. TL:DR I made a thing do another thing with this thing, and it worked! ![]()
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