Dale,

Were you able to read the data at all coming into the PC?

Could you make out what alarm conditions were being triggered etc.

What you were trying to do sounds a little like what I'll be doing as far as going rs-232 to tcp/ip on the board anyway.

You're right about companies already designing those boards, I saw a prototype of one.

It had a load of other stuff on it too.

,

-sean

Yes I could read the data, but I wasnt able to do it using hyperterminal, had to build a dumb serial reader as I wasnt able to open the com port if it was already open in the alarm software.

I probably could have worked out what was going off had I persued it a bit further, but just created the dumb serial reader and never processed the data as I started my PhD so been pretty busy ever since.

I think Ademco Microtech already have a board out that does this.

Dale

Most manufacturers have different formats, hence galaxy gold will not talk to aritech, menvier or gardtech.SIA, XSIA and the rest are dialler formats either on board or stand alone and are common to all panels and all receivers, havent seen the DSC card mentioned but know that DSC make an excellant reciever so may be the way to go, but this would only allow you to recieve alarm codes and text, you would still need makers software to speak to panel via a modem.

If you just want to monitor alarms (ie mini cs) then phone round ARCs and see if any got secound hand receiver this would allow you to see system codes being sent but you would still need software to interface that with a data base.

Try EBAY, seem to sell anything there. gonna sell my granny next week if any one wants to make a bid.

Hoped this helped