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AVM-MC1 - Will it work


Engineerisaac

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Ok so im extremely sure this thread has rattled this around a few times in the past. 

I have 3 AVM-MC1-B in a project at 2.5.3 Every last relay and Sensor on it is being used. On an extremely NON official stance. As I know Control4's official answer is No upgrade to an IO Controller. Im looking at the code and moving the project forward to a newer version.

Would the relays and Sensors continue to work if left in the project?  This project im working on is extremely outside of the normal scope of a home and its running a rather neat farm setup. Its working brilliantly however They want to expand some things and newer products don't run on 2.5.3

So for the sake of the forum here and the adventure of technical understanding. Looking at it i see no reason why It wouldn't work besides the sales pitch "buy an upgrade"

And to be clear im talking about only the Relays and sensors. The rest can stop function entirely.

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No, if the device is even in the system only used for contacts/relays it can't be upgraded past a certain firmware and must be deleted from the project. The answer as you already know is to use an IO Extender. Also, that media controller is out of warranty and could keel over one day, mid mango. 

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Right thats the story that's sold to us. But here's the deal. The project is at 2.5.3 and the AVM is at 2.2.4 and EVERYTHING works so far. So at what point did they modify enough of the elements that interact with that unit to declare it unusable. I am well aware of what the official story is from any dealer or control4.

But let's look at this outside of any warranty issue. and Purly investigate it at a linux package level? At what point is the code of the packages modified to be non functional.

As clearly Between 2.2.4 and 2.5.3 The packages were left untouched between versions. Meaning that technically it still works.

Im looking for answers from people who mainly push the envelope or tinker in busybox.

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Yea I know this sucker is old. Worst case scenario here is a grab a 250 host 2.5.3 and isolate it as its own project.

Write a driver that converts the relays into a Web json string with restful commands and put the other stuff on newer gear.

 

But understand this farmer is not wealthy and we are solving simple stuff for cows here using expired ebay junk.

At no point am I to do this for mainstream customers. Just asking for heavy technical advice from fellow interested minds purely for the sake of "can it be done"

 

I know the avm is old and limited by its brain. But that's it's only limitation. Otherwise it was a solid and amazingly reliable unit.

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WHY are you trying to go past 2.5.3?

What CAN be done is just leaving the system as it is - what is breaking that you need to go to higher versions?

 

You will NOT be able to leave the devices in (as is), you'll certainly create issues that way - and there is no 'generic controller' for this generation of devices like there is for HC series controllers.

 

Is it technically possible to write a driver for it - presumably so. But I worry that the amount of time your spending and thus should be charging is not going to off-set the cost of replacement.

Plus as this IS for a well working farm equipment setup, do you truly want to go down the rabbit hole on it?

 

How critical is timing? Check this out: https://www.drivercentral.io/platforms/control4-drivers/control-by-web-control4-driver-chowmain/

Note that the driver polls sensors so you could be  few seconds behind, but if that is of no concern, you can add 32 sensors and contacts (including driver cost) for considerably less.

At the same time, even 3 I/O extenders V2 aren't going to add up to a truly major cost - if you're so inclined to help, sell at cost if you must.

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None of it is time critical. But I want to incorporate Philips hue drivers at c4z as status indicators. And 2.5.3 does not support this.

This project is honestly a charity side hobby. It has no profit source. And honestly I want to see if it's can be done mcgiver style.

Worst case scenario say it does break. Oh well it would leave control4 and move to a more plc system.

This is more like Frankenstein stuff. Nevermind that we should do it. Let's see if we can.

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I mean it's not worth it. You can pick up a used IO extender and be drinking a beer while its updating to do what you want it to do, before youre done writing some man-in-the-middle driver or something to make the old media controller work, and then have it die a week later because the fan bearing went out or something and it overheated. I have probably 4-5 IO extenders on the shelf in my warehouse for that purpose - they were used with 200/300s etc, but upgraded with the EA series so we keep them around.

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It's alright guys. You are all right in a practical since. I'm just one of those guys who will buy a car off the lot and drive it till the wheels fall off.

Kinda pains me when I see old tech go to the junkyard when a firmware flash can strip em to the core for more life.

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