UPDATE 11/12/2021 : Colin, a blog reader, contributed to the project with a final solution which can be found here.
UPDATE 12/11/2021 : Apostolos, a blog reader, contributed to the project with the following design, on how to connect ESP to the panel bus. At the moment, I am not able to test it, but Apostolos confirms that it works. Please use with caution
UPDATE 29/8/2020 : I was very pleased to see, that other people also share their time and their knowledge to help others. I did abandoned this project until Matt made a comment on this post with a great solution, which I intend to use soon. All credits to Matt for his brilliant solution!!
UPDATE 29/7/2018 : This will be the first unfinished project that is posted on this blog. After spending three months, I got some info that the version of the panel I have, does not support automation.
Another thing that lead me to abandon this project, is that NAPCO does not provide any info on this panel like DSC etc. so it is very difficult to reverse engineer.
I will leave this port active though, for someone who will need the info posted here.
I am currently working on a project regarding some hack on my alarm panel. It’s a napco 1632. I am trying to reverse engineer communications in order to build a webapp to control the panel remotely. There are some options provided by napco, but need separate hardware.
My system is equipped with NL-MOD-UL module that gives you the ability to configure the alarm panel through LAN. This module is connected on the serial port of the panel. The panel has the ability to send real-time status messages through the serial port and receive commands like system arm, but napco hasn’t developed any application to do that. They have only quickloader for configuration and management of the panel.
Newest modules like STARLINK or IBR-ZREMOTE give the ability to control the panel remotely, but the hardware is expensive. So, as I said, I am trying to reverse engineer for a solution. The newest modules are not connected on the serial port of the panel but on the keypad bus. I have already ordered a logic analyzer in order to decode the bus. But until I receive my logic analyzer, I did some attempts to read it via an arduino MEGA. I made a circuit with an optocoupler because the voltage is to high for the arduino to handle.
Here is the arduino code : ttl-debug
The bus of napco 1632 has four cables :
- RED ( +12V )
- BLACK ( GND )
- YELLOW ( Keypad TX – Panel RX )
- GREEN ( Panel TX – Keypad RX )