Control lights via telephone

We have about 300 DL05 in our 30 Tech Colleges and I am looking for the way to control lights, air conditioners that are connected to DL05, through a telephone from any place in the world. I am thinking to use asterisk because we can add this feature to the PBX. For example if a somebody call to a house or a company, asterisk respond saying if you know the ext. mark it know. I suggest that one of the extensions is for the control of lights etc. and if you pres this extension it prompts you for a secret code. Ones the system verified the secret code it prompts you to on/off light etc. And send the information to the PLC.
What are the probabilities of this project with direct soft DL05 and asterisk?
see the link below.
web4.automationdirect.com/static … mdmtel.pdf

a project like this can certainly be done through asterisk, however it will likely require other software be written to handle it… I dont believe the MDMTEL board from auto direct is an IVR… it is strictly a PC modem so it taks in data carrier only and not voice

asterisk can connect modem calls together but in and of itself is a phone system, not an automation controller…

I use asterisk in my home to do the things you are talking of, control my HVAC, lights, door latches, cameras etc… however i have additional hardware and software… and communicate over TCP/IP using the Xap protocol to my main automation server…

my PLC’s are standalone but ultimately are controlled by the main server… asterisk talks to the main server by Xap…

example:

asterisk dialplan sends me through a voice menu lets say to turn on the porch light… i am asked first what room I wish to control, then am given a list of lightsi n that room and then I can turn on, turn off, or set brightness… this is all done in asterisk… however when I press the key to “execute” an external AGI script is called which communicates via Xap to my main server… which picks it up and turns on the light…

asterisk handles the voice interface part of it…
you would need to code software to talk to your PLC units based on what was handled in asterisk…
-Christopher

Thanks for your answer, I am air conditioning instructor I am trying to do something fascinating with my students, can you give us more information on how built this project.

Just make a search in google with the “asterisk agi” words and you will have so much information to begin your project, from now i tell you will need some programming knowledge in perl, php, python or some other computer programming language.

Good luck.

OrvUx

Can anyone make an algorithm of a control of appliance conected to plc through an IVR.

you will likely need to write some of your own code for this to work…

there is a project by patrick lidstone and another by greg limings to get the Xap home automation protocol working with asterisk…

you can then take the Xap data and write your own application to parse the standard and control the PLC…

or

in my case i use Homeseer windows based home automation software to parse the XaP messages and I have homeseer integration to my RCS multizone HVAC controller… thus i can through Xap control my thermostats…

the asterisk part of it is pretty easy… thats just a custom voice menu with a bunch of AGI script calls… the backend of it is the tougher part…

talking to the PLC itself will involve a program on the PLC to take and receive data from a custom software package running on a server somewhere…

this program would need to talk to the PLC on one end and talk Xap protocol on the other end and be the go-between

patrick lidstone;s asterisk AGI script (modified) can be the go between your program and asterisk…

in my case full HVAC control is handled by my windows system software (both homeseer and my own custom software)… such things as monitoring outside temperature, temperature rise, various zone temperatures… differentials in setpoint and actual, humidity inside and out, number of zones calling, etc are used to calculate how much fire, how much compressor, how much supply and return dampers to open /close, and the drive percentage on the blower motors, as well as economizer / outside air open etc…

all asterisk does is allow me to set the setpoints, modes, and fan on / off modes…

to me for HVAC control, it is easier to set it up for a user to text fro a cell phone, or use an PDA / iphone and log into the system to adjust than it is to follow many voice menus…
-Christopher

This is what an engineer of DirectSotf told me.
Case 1808: DirectSOFT – Control lights via telephone

By Greg kiser

Hi Jose,
The bottomline is that whatever ends up talking to the DL-PLC, must speak one of its protocols.

DL05 Serial Protocols (see pg. 4-4 of DL05 manual)
Port1 (RS-232C, 9600 bps fixed)
• K-sequence protocol (slave).
• Modbus RTU (slave).
• DirectNET (slave).
Port2 (RC-232C, 300-38.4Kbps)
• K-sequence protocol (slave).
• Modbus RTU (master/slave).
• DirectNET (master/slave).
• Non-sequence / print protocol.

DL05 Ethernet Protocols (Must have H0-ECOM100 installed in DL05 option slot).
• ECOM protocol
• Modbus TCP (master/slave)

NOTES
• K-sequence protocol is proprietary.
• DirectNET is open and the manual for it can be downloaded.
• There is canned software sold by AutomationDirect that talks these protocols to the PLC.
• Our freely downloadable Ethernet SDK will talk ECOM protocol to the H0-ECOM100. You can use the Ethernet SDK in a C++ program, for example.

Hope this helps a little more.

Best regards,

www.hosteng.com/Support.htm

I am trying to integrate xap protocol with asterisk or one of his flavors and DL05 (PLC) from automation direct.

There is a sdk from hosteng.com this a free open source software that manage HO-ECOM (module to conect dlo5 to ethernet) They give me the source code.
If I found the way to integrate Xap protocol and SDK protocol I can control lights, air conditioner that are conected to the PLC from asterisk.

is your DL05 an integral part of your HVAC system or is it just closing the contacts needed to start / stop the system based on temperature inputs and setpoints?

if thats all it is doing you might look into a Basic Stamp or such which you can easily make an HVAC controller out of and then create your own very simple protocol… XAP is pretty easy to get working as long as you have the software to talk to the PLC and then talk XAP across the network…

OR…

you could write a program to talk to the PLC and then create a say mySQL database… you could write an AGI script for asterisk in PHP (use PHPAGI as your baseline)… your PHP script would simply update the database and your frontline program would monitor that database and update it back…

thats another way to go that might work decent for you… that is the way i am working on for 2 way comms to be able to see status changes of my home automation system and have them relayed to asterisk…

asterisk realtime variables can be created and set to various parameters to be played to me over the phone when i request…

-Christopher

DL05 only open and close relays no matter the tempeture of the hvac. I have the propietary software of Dl05, I can control the plc from a serial port or ethernet and sdk open source on wish I could control the plc from ethernet.