alarmdecoder.com

Hello All,

I recently moved into a new house that had an existing Honeywell Vista 20SE panel. I had an AD2Pi that I brought with me from the old house and attempted to set it up with the Vista 20SE, but I am experiencing instability. Initially since I had no codes for the system I reset the Vista 20SE back to its default settings and started with a fresh install on the AD2Pi and latest firmware.

The initial setup with the AD2Pi worked without issues and the diagnostics passed with the panel as well. I also ensured that address 31 was used, since I understand it is required for the Vista 20SE.

I am able to configure settings on the Vista 20SE from the physical keypad, but since it is not an alphanumeric keypad I am very limited and have no text readout in the menu system. Since I already had an AD2Pi I figured there was no need to purchase an alphanumeric keypad and I was just going to use alarm decoder.

The main issue is if I enter zone programming mode (*56) the virtual keypad freezes and I have no response from the keypad buttons. The display readout is stuck on "installer 20" which is the last command before entering zone programming.

If I then go to the physical keypad and use *99 to exit the zone programming, the virtual keypad then becomes responsive again.

I can telnet into the AD2Pi and send commands without issues, but again as soon as I enter zone programming the virtual keypad freezes.

If I go into another programming option like exit/enter delay the virtual keypad is responsive and there is no issue. The ONLY mode which seems to have an issue is the zone programming.

If I run the diagnostics after the virtual keypad has frozen, I will receive a keypad comm receive error. Below is the output of that diagnostic.

Code: Select all

!CONFIG>MODE=A&CONFIGBITS=ff05&ADDRESS=31&LRR=N&COM=N&EXP=NNNNN&REL=NNNN&MASK=ffffffff&DEDUPLICATE=N
!Reading configuration.
!UART init.
!VER:ffffffff,V2.2a.8.9b-306,TX;RX;SM;VZ;RF;ZX;RE;AU;3X;CG;DD;MF;L2;KE;M2;CB;DS;ER;CR
!>ADDRESS=31&CONFIGBITS=ff05&MASK=ffffffff&EXP=NNNNN&REL=NNNN&LRR=N&DEDUPLICATE=N&MODE=A&COM=N
!CONFIG>MODE=A&CONFIGBITS=ff05&ADDRESS=31&LRR=N&COM=N&EXP=NNNNN&REL=NNNN&MASK=ffffffff&DEDUPLICATE=N
!Reading configuration.
!UART init.
!Sending..done
!Sending..done


Did you ever get this sorted out? I haven't paid much attention to this forum for awhile as my AD setup has been working pretty flawlessly once I worked through my initial issues. I feel your pain though. I too inherited a Vista 20SE panel with a house purchase, and I believe ran into the same issues you're experiencing. If you care to check out post #1176 from 9/19/2020, you'll see a fairly extensive dialogue where Sean and I were trying to troubleshoot it. Ultimately Sean seemed to run out of time/interest in pursuing it, and I just had to settle with never using the virtual keypad to program the Vista panel. Fortunately, I do have an original ADT alpha keypad, so although painful, does work to program the text strings. And now that I have a stable system, that's a pretty rare occurrence these days.

At the time I did quite a bit of troubleshooting on my own, specifically trying out the various firmware versions available for the AD2Pi board. From my notes, the virtual keypad worked properly with firmware version 'ademcoemu_V2_2a_8_3c' but it had other operational issues that caused me to back it out and stick with version 'ademcoemu_V2-2a-8-9b-306' (the latest/greatest at the time, I believe still is). If you had to, you could load that first firmware, do all your text programming with the virtual keypad, then change back to the later firmware for actual use.

Let me know if I can be of other assistance with your apparently rare Vista 20SE panel. I've gotten to know mine quite well, and still impressed how rock-solid it is.

- Mark