How To | Use simple Command Buttons to control the Lyntec RPC panel via TCP/IP

Learn how to use simple command buttons to control a Lyntec RPC panel over TCP/IP connections.

Updated at May 22nd, 2023

Procedure


It is possible to control the Lyntec RPC circuit breaker panel's individual breakers and also zones (groups of breakers) directly from the Core over the network simply using our Command Buttons object, with no scripting required at all.  You would simply use the TCP/IP commands as outlined in the Lyntec document on page 56 "TCP/IP PROTOCOL" (document is here https://www.lyntec.com/139-0498-02_RPC_instructons.pdf ).    You won't be able to query the state or get feedback of the various breakers without a script, but you can indeed control them on/off.

While working with a customer we found one very important "gotcha" not readily apparent, though.  You will be sending trigger commands to Lyntec RPC's IP address over port 80.  When using the commands from the Lyntec operation manual, you will find this info on page 56:

Zone Control=Z (indivdual breaker control would be B), so:

GET /p2.rpc?IPZ002=1
This control string will turn zone #2 on.

GET /p2.rpc?IPZ002=0
This control string will turn zone #2 off.

However, for Q-Sys Command Buttons, you have to add an additional [SPACE] followed by a CR-LF-CR-LF sequence to each string.  So, the first command above, to turn Zone 2 ON, would look like this in the Command Button text field:

GET /p2.rpc?IPZ002=1 \r\n\r\n

Alternatively, to send all of this as HEX commands, the text field would look like this (all one line):

\x47\x45\x54\x20\x2F\x70\x32\x2E\x72\x70\x63\x3F\x49\x50\x5A\x30\x30\x32\x3D\x31\x20\x0D\x0A\x0D\x0A

Notice the last five hex bytes are not documented!

This has been tested and confirmed to work, both as ASCII and as HEX, in Q-Sys v6.2.1, and should work the same for all other versions of Q-Sys.