alarmdecoder.com

WA7840V9
Copyright PITTWAY 1998
Rev 10

Just out of curiosity. Does anyone else have problems with the board going into setup with a hard power up on the rpi, or is it just me?

I have seen it before but it usually ends up being something related to the Pi firmware OS build etc or I have seen really big issues with a Pi with a power problem. Lower power bad power supply or bad usb power cable. Both of these situations end up result in random data across the GPIO uart pins. You can configure ser2sock to enable debugging so it will log all of the data in syslog. Messy way to see what / when this happens but it will certainly show exactly when and what "character" triggered the issue. If somehow it got Junk data such as a "!" it would lock everyting up in config mode.

I think rev 10 is new board so not in the realm of "early firmware"

Re
Sean M

OK thanks. I may upgrade to a pi4 anyway and see if it fixes it. Im using the 24v panel adapter that you guys sell.

Seeing this as well with Raspberry Pi 3, it all worked well until I upgraded to the Buster image. Now I get corrupted messages from ad2pi. Downgrading back to stretch did not resolve the issue.
Did some testing and this is what I found:
- Initially thought the device firmware got botched but I couldn't get it to respond so also could not flash firmware.
- Then I thought maybe the battery for the alarm panel is failing (also powered using the stepdown sold here), replaced the battery, no dice
- Finally I have a powerbank laying around that is designed to power a pi, used that and everything works perfectly.

I believe that the pi 3 isn't getting enough power to run with the ad2pi. Just to be clear the pi still boots up and works fine however the flashing red LED on the pi indicates that the voltage is low which I assume is causing the ad2pi to spew out garbage characters. I also know that the pi 3 is very finicky and even 5v 3amp chargers will not work to power it with the ad2pi. I think that the pi actually needs closer to 5.1 or 5.2 volts to operate correctly with the ad2pi. I have ordered an adjustable step down from ebay to test this out and see if upping the voltage to 5.1 or 5.2 will work.

As a side note, when the ad2pi is connected and the pi is powered by the stepdown I ordered here it makes a very subtle whirring noise (the ad2pi) and the red LED on the pi 3 does not come on at all. When I connect the 5v 3amp charger, the red LED flashes and the ad2pi does NOT make the whirring noise. When connected to the powerbank, red LED is solid, no whirring and ad2pi functions properly.
I will update here when I receive the new stepdown with the results.

One quick update, I just thought of one difference since upgrading to buster, I think I previously had BT disabled. Lo and behold, I disabled it again and now the AD2pi works fine. Could be the power saving from BT is enough to ensure that the AD2pi is powered properly.

My original post here was for a raspberry pi 2 and the ad2pi. My red light is solid/on which indicates normal. The issue I have with the latest firmware is that it just drops characters. I don't think it corrupts anything.

Just to ask (since it has been a while) if there is any more recent firmware than 2-2a-8-8 to test on a Vista20-SE that might not drop characters let me know.
Thanks.

Just checking to see if a newer version of the FW might fix message corruption on the Vista 20SE units. FW posted on wiki still seems to be 2.2a.8.8
Thanks.