Escient SWK8650E keyboard

landolfi · Post by **landolfi** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:18 pm

split from:
https://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7300

Really late to the party. I want to control some old Sony changers with an Escient fireball because I can use optical and the Fireball handles the switch between changers (yes, I know I should be using FLACs on a PC instead, I'm still working on all the metadata for a large collection). Anyway, I have an Escient SWK8650E keyboard which appears to have a JP1 connector. I cannot get it to work with the Escient even after a 981 reset, although I do have an Atlas 1056 remote working with the E2 protocol Rob created. The box is a DVM100.

Do I understand from the posts above that this keyboard uses a Philips protocol, and is that protocol available in RM? Or should I try the MCE keyboard device upgrade in the file section, since that MCE protocol is something the DVM100 already understands? Anybody have any insight into this keyboard model? I don't see any keyboard RDFs here so not sure what to try.

Special thanks to Robman for the thorough documentation of the protocol, I accidentally set the box to Zone 3 and was locked out of any ability to control the Escient until I saw his note about the device code being sent for FB1-4. I modified the device in the upgrade to 3 and voila, I'm in!

landolfi · Post by **landolfi** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:27 pm

landolfi wrote:Really late to the party. I want to control some old Sony changers with an Escient fireball because I can use optical and the Fireball handles the switch between changers (yes, I know I should be using FLACs on a PC instead, I'm still working on all the metadata for a large collection). Anyway, I have an Escient SWK8650E keyboard which appears to have a JP1 connector. I cannot get it to work with the Escient even after a 981 reset, although I do have an Atlas 1056 remote working with the E2 protocol Rob created. The box is a DVM100.

Do I understand from the posts above that this keyboard uses a Philips protocol, and is that protocol available in RM? Or should I try the MCE keyboard device upgrade in the file section, since that MCE protocol is something the DVM100 already understands? Anybody have any insight into this keyboard model? I don't see any keyboard RDFs here so not sure what to try.

Special thanks to Robman for the thorough documentation of the protocol, I accidentally set the box to Zone 3 and was locked out of any ability to control the Escient until I saw his note about the device code being sent for FB1-4. I modified the device in the upgrade to 3 and voila, I'm in!

Never mind, I had the insight to try to get a signature from RM but it can't download anything from the keyboard. So I guess it just looks like a JP1 connector.

landolfi · Post by **landolfi** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:53 am

It does have a UEI logo, though. So does that mean it's JP1? I just has the label HEAD on the PC board.

Post by **The Robman** » Wed Jul 25, 2018 9:57 am

@landolfi, I found these posts buried in a long Slingbox post, which is probably why they went un-noticed. Are you still here and if so, do you still need help with this?

landolfi · Post by **landolfi** » Wed Jul 25, 2018 11:52 am

Thanks, Rob, no, I put the Escient in storage when I got a Slink-E. Such is the life of a late adopter.

Post by **The Robman** » Wed Jul 25, 2018 1:13 pm

If you ever decide to have another crack at it, post something here. For starters, regarding the JP1 connector on the keyboard, there are 2 or 3 different types of JP1 connector and they're not cross-compatible, so it's quite possible that you have the wrong type of JP1 cable for the keyboard. Do you know what type of JP1 cable you have?

landolfi · Post by **landolfi** » Wed Jul 25, 2018 7:57 pm

It’s a Tommy Tyler USB cable from approximately 2004.

Post by **The Robman** » Thu Jul 26, 2018 7:02 pm

Which remotes does it work with? That will tell me if it's a JP1 or JP1.x cable. And even if it's a JP1.x cable, I forget if the ones from back then are compatible with the more modern remotes. You might be well advised to get an FTDI cable. Normally, I would direct you to this link regarding the "chip partner" cable but I just noticed that he's stopped selling them.

There are other ebay sellers selling PL230TA cables but I have no idea if they will work with JP1 or not. Here's a link to one that's only $4.50 shipped (from CA) if you want to try your luck. I guess we do need to establish a new source. If you don't mind waiting for one to come from China, here's one for about $1.36.

EDIT: Looking at those listings closer I don't see a RTS cable, so I don't think they'll work. The cable below has an RTS line, so it might work:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/181085288062

landolfi · Post by **landolfi** » Thu Jul 26, 2018 8:19 pm

Pretty sure it’s FTDI. It worked with a 1.4 remote and an Atlas 1.3. If I recall correctly, the 1.4 model was OAR1060G. The fit on the JP1 end was a little loose but it transferred data well as long as I held the JP1 side straight up during a transfer. I have the version with the green and red LEDs so I can see when it’s transferring a config properly.

Post by **The Robman** » Sun Jul 29, 2018 9:02 am

If it's FTDI, do you recall buying it from a seller named chip_partner? That's the cable that most of us bought for a long time, it came with 6 individual connectors which you either had to glue together, connect one at a time, or replace with a 6-hole connector.

landolfi · Post by **landolfi** » Mon Jul 30, 2018 1:19 pm

I bought it from Tommy Tyler directly, there was a link in the forum to his web shop as I recall.

Post by **The Robman** » Mon Jul 30, 2018 2:37 pm

Sorry, you did say it was a Tommy Tyler cable, my bad. Do you know approximately when your keyboard was made? Given that the Tyler cable is 14 years old, my hunch is that a newer cable would work with the keyboard, if it's a newer keyboard. Unfortunately, the ebay guy who normally sells them (chip_partner) has stopped selling them, so mdavej is out hunting for a new seller now. There are a lot of FTDI cables on ebay but unfortunately many of them don't work with JP1. We were lucky that, for a long time, chip_partner was selling ones that did work for under $10 shipped.

landolfi · Post by **landolfi** » Mon Jul 30, 2018 6:46 pm

I finally gave up on that keyboard because it was strange but I couldn't get it to respond to any of the factory reset commands. I wondered if maybe it was a non-US model. But in the end, it was an eBay purchase and the seller agreed to refund my money and didn't ask me to return it. It didn't sound like he had ever been able to verify that it worked in the first place. So back when I was thinking there must be a way to make it work, I figured JP1 might be the only way.

I can't tell you how many times over the years JP1 has been a source of delight in being able to get something to work. And now with the Xsights, it's gotten even better. It sounds unfortunately like Universal is getting out of this business, which is a shame. Phones are great, but IMO for specialized functions they just can't compete with a good universal remote.

Post by **The Robman** » Mon Jul 30, 2018 7:34 pm

UEI isn't getting out of the business. Well, they did get out of the retail business when they offloaded "One For All" many years back, since then they've been a "behind the scenes" company, so the volume of UEI remotes out in the world really depends on what other companies order.

The Xsights and Nevos were a good experiment but I think they turned out to be too expensive for the market, so they dumped them all in China and of course those units all ended up coming here anyway, at ridiculously low prices via ebay. But that supply just recently dried up.

So we recently lost both our cheap supply of Nevos and FTDI cables.