Still working on my Home Theater Automation project.

This is the solution to (professionally) replace the RPi 3B+ I was using with USB-Serial adapters.

MOXA has a LOT of products in catalog, and they're quite pricey ($1.5K~2K).
But if you go for older/used models on eBay, they can be found for less than $100.

Got a NPort 6650-8 for $89 recently.



You connect the device to your LAN, it comes with a Web GUI but you can use CONSOLE port, Telnet or SSH to configure it.
From there each Serial port, using the official MOXA pin out (took me a while to understand that), can be connected and become LAN-enabled.

DO NOT USE CISCO/Arista Console cables. They connect DB9 Port #5 (GND) on RJ45 pin 4~5 which is where MOXA expects Tx/Rx.
Best case you'll get an echo of your Tx back to Rx, but you can't communicate with the serial device.

You can choose to access it over Telnet, SSH, or have MOXA drivers installed to look like a local COM ports (called RealCOM, Windows or Linux), or even be a COM to COM proxy (over Ethernet) or reverse telnet. There's a lot you can do with this device, it's aimed at industrial/professional usage.

So, from there, any device with DB9 Serial control (such as DVD/BD players, Projectors, some A/V Amps, etc.) just becomes an IP:Port on your network.

Example, using port #2 of the MOXA to control an OPPO Player:






Next... get Pioneer (SR + Xantech) and SONY (CONTROL S) devices IR IN turned into a LAN-controllable device.

And then automate everything with a VM running NODE-RED.

Julien

Happy to report the basic functions are working!



Julien

Those are interesting concepts. I can understand the convenience of having automated control of a complex system. My "theater" room is small enough that I can reach all of the devices physically, a few steps away.

I am working on this for a few reasons:

1. It's fun if you're into geeky stuff
2. I'm planning to move 2/3rd of my gear away from the living room, in an adjacent space, where remote controls won't reach anymore
3. The remote controls won't live forever
4. The iOS Apps won't work forever (unless you keep old phones only for this purpose)
5. CRESTON (or similar) systems costs an arm and a leg and won't support old gears forever either

If I can manage to turn everything into a simple telnet IP port then it becomes easy to write a simple web local page triggering pre-designed scripts to turn on/off/preset things automatically, having all I/Os aligned without thinking about it anymore.

You can also use some of the triggers to automate further.
Ex: when switching on my pre-amp, the amp automatically powers up.
Ex: when setting the pre-amp to "5.1 inputs #2", the Lexicon LD-1 will power on for AC3RF, otherwise it's just a passive COAX pass-through.

Julien

The dream for me is to someday have a spare room where I can put the noise-generating gear especially like the LD player and a more robust NAS. Think I'll bookmark this page for when I'm there; great stuff.

Node-RED is a little disorienting at first but then things start to make sense and the node/connection/condition/node just write themselves.

This will turn on an OPPO-205 into a DAC-only device, with Digital Audio coming on COAX IN, Display turned OFF (Dimmer OFF) and Video turned OFF (Pure Video ON).

Sequence works as follows:

• Power ON, wait for 15 seconds
• Select COAX IN, wait for 2 seconds
• Loops the Dimmer status until it reports OFF, wait 2 seconds each time
• Loops the Pure Audio status until it reports ON, wait 2 seconds each time
• END

And here is the finished script, triggered from a simple web request (URL hit) on a local NAS.



Julien