Guys,
I have lighting, audio and thermostats that are serial and are being controlled by my security system. With the serial expander from philips hooked up ethernet. Could I use serial to ip adapters and communicate to my systems ethernet from the expander? Has anyone tried this. How would you point the expander to the adapter?

Why bother with the expander since The Pronto can talk TCPIP directly to what ever it is you want the expander to talk to. The expanders do not talk TCPIP to anything except a Pronto or somebody who is spoofing a Proto

Example.
I want to control my serial lighting from the pronto and my security system. Do I need some form of y cable?
Could I have ip adapters on each device and have it talk serial through the network?

If the lighting system is serial and has only a single RS-232 connector then a Y cable will NOT work. You'd have to have some other type of bus such as RS-422 or TCP/IP to make this work. You might be able to use a DPDT relay to "switch" between 2 controllers but I would not recommend this. Using a DPDT relay assumes that both systems have a common ground and you'd be "switching" the RX and TX lines (pins 2&3) only of the RS-232 cable.

so I would have some kind of hardware handshaking issue?

This is why I am intrested in the converters. each device would only need 1 and they are connected ethernet. Seems I would also need to convert the serial out of the expander to get it on the network then from net back to serial at the device.
Does this sound like it would work?

As I said before, if you are going to convert the serial out of the expander, throw away the expander and just use TCPIP directly out of the Pronto.

Barry
How would I direct the commands towards the converters?
I guess I should get one to try.

Since It is all connected to my security system could I use a home seer script and control? Do you have a link?

You need to have the TCPIP protocol that the converter uses on the LAN (network) Once you have that then issuing TCPIP merely requires time learning and a desire to make it happen.

If the protocol is not provided by the mfg then they want you to buy both sides (two converters and are making the transmission proprietary to make that happen. It can be reverse engineered with the right equipment (sniffer).

Which converters are you looking at (mfg and model)?

If you are controlling them by Homeseer and they are mapped to HS devices, my Homeseer plugin and sample xcf will handle al aspects of their control, communications and status. You will need to modify the xcf to suit your needs but it is a good starting point and has all the heavy lifting code (TCPIP communications) in place. Contact me through eMail via my profile