Hello
I’ve got an old LK (or ELKO) IHC WIN Controller unit (possible from around 2007) with a RS232 and RS485 connection. Does anyone know if it is possible to integrate it with HA? Maybe @dingusdk would know? How do I connect it to HA? Where to start?
Thanks!
Andreas
The newer IHC controllers have an ethernet connection and we can use this to interface from HA to the IHC controller. You cannot use the older controller with any of the existing IHC HA integrations.
I may be possible to do something on the RS485 or the RS232 port. There is no official documetation available for this. I think the communication on the RS485 port is related to the modbus protocol, if you want to try and do some reverse engeniering yourself.
Thanks @dingusdk. This kind of reverse engeneering might be out of my league, so I might be looking into updating the control unit. Any advice on that, to get away with it easiest/cheapest possible? Would there be second hand units to come by?
I think all newer IHC controller models are “electically” compatible with the older model. All in- and out-put modules should work, but if you have something special connected you should probably check this before you upgrade. The software running on the controller is not compatible , and you will have to re-create your setup in the new IHC visual application. I don’t know any way to convert the old setup to a new controller.
You may be able to find second hand controllers cheaper. The new visual 3 controller is faster than the version 2, and i would go for version 3, but it is also the most expensive. If your IHC setup is not too big, and price is important version 2 is ok - i used it myself for several years.
Ok, thanks again @dingusdk. I did some research and I’ll go for the visual 3 controller. Would the setup be possible to do through HA directly when the hardware is in place and connected to the input and output units?
Once you have connected your new controller, you will need to programs your new controller with IHC Visual, This cannot be done from HA. You cannot program anything from HA into the controller.
All function blocks has to be made in IHC
Is there an open technique/software to replace the IHC Controller (and maybe in/output units?) in an older (2007) IHC system? Zigbee? Z-wave? Just keen on not locking the system to one manufacturer and it’s software - I want to be able to address future issues or expansions…
I did integrate the older IHC Visual Controller (the one without ethernet) a couple of years ago successfully.
Used Martin Hejnfelt’s GitHub - skumlos/ihcserver: Server daemon for LK IHC controllers with RS485 interface for connecting to the controller via RS485 and wrote a small script that communicates between ihcserver and HA.
Has been running fine so far.
I anybody cares, I can share the code.
Very interested! I just rented a place with one of these systems, and would love to automate it. Have a raspi to run the software on, would love to know how you integrated it!
Kind regards,
Av
I will put something up then. Which model of the IHC controller You have there?
Thanks for sharing. I just got all my stuff and trying to get it to work. For now compiling ihcserver gives me issues as apparently the code doesn’t compile anymore using newer compilers, so I have to figure out how to change the makefile to use c++14. Will let you know how I progress.
After setting compiler options and installing libssl-dev, I got ihcserver built. Next stel to see if I have the rs485 stuff working correctly. To be continued.
Nice! Would be great if You’d document the necessary compiler options etc. I will update the documentation accordingly.
I’m documenting 
will share what I did so you can get the documentation up to date.
Please open an issue in github repo for the notes, then the information is accessible for everybody.
I did a reinstall of my HA platform and along the way updated the documentation as well.
