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General configuation:

  • Mechanical Room HW-MA-8-120
    • Processor is set to 1
    • includes 8-relay CCO outputs, 2 are used (purpose unknown)
    • has 4 RPMs installed (4A, 4U, 4U, 4U)
    • has external AC power cord, plugged into CyberPower 650VA UPS
  • Exercise Room HW-MA-8-120
    • Processor is set to 2
    • includes 8-relay CCO outputs, 2 are used (purpose unknown)
    • has 6 RPMs installed (all 4U)
    • does not have external AC power cord
    • has permanent RS-232 serial cable installed, that leads to the red-colored RJ-45 jack a female DE-9 serial connector under the office computer-cubby desk (I think)

2026-08-22, Saturday

Over the past few weeks I have been working with the programming software that I was able to get directly from Lutron for this old 'original' HomeWorks system. I have built up a Windows 98 SE system on 'tater', an HP t5510 thin client that is just old enough to have good drivers for that version of MSWindows. The HomeWorks Windows Utility runs as a 16-bit program, thus will not run on anything newer than XP. I could have tried it with XP, but 98 seems to be more appropriate. The t5510 has a 9-pin serial port which is used to interface to the HomeWorks processor(s), and it works very well. I successfully downloaded the historical programming database from the system and saved that. It has no labels or names, etc. since is was extracted, at least it lists the zones, their control through a dimmer/switch or an RPM, and scene definitions, etc. I have enabled and disabled each zone in the system and correlated that with the physical light zones, etc, to place names to each zone. It's starting to make sense to me now, and I'm quite impressed with what it can do.

I have discovered several things in the past few weeks:

  • The mechanical room processor's (#1) relays are wired to the main garage bay doors 1-4, with relay 5 controlling the driveway bollard lights. Presently, relays 1 and 2 are disconnected, but the CAT3 cable is there, and appears to have been connected in the past.
  • the exercise room processor's (#2) relays 1-2 are wired to control the Master and Office fireplaces! I have confirmed this by removing and inspecting the wall switches and junction boxes in the Master bedroom and the Office, both. Presently, relay 2 is wired, with relay 1 disconnected, but again the cable is there, and appears to have been connected in the past. Not sure which is which yet... is Relay 1 the Master fire, or is Relay 1 the Office fire? Once I re-light the fireplace pilots this fall, I can learn which is which. Q: is the Living room fire wired up this way too? I'll have to check it eventually.

Also I have learned that the HWV-2B keypad -- used in basement family room, three upstairs bedrooms, the Master Bath Cabinet area, plus at the front door -- has four different modes of operation. The basement and the bedrooms are setup in the One-Zone mode, where the upper button turns the zone ON, while the lower button turns the same zone OFF. The front door unit and Master Bath units are already set for Two-Zone mode, where the upper and lower buttons are programmed independently to control programmed zones seperately. After changing the Balcony BR keypad from One-Zone to Two-Zone mode using the DIP switches, I confirmed that this indeed works, and is changable. I'm likely to set all bedroom keypads to Two-Zone mode with upper button controlling the bedroom overhead lighting, and the lower button turning on the hallway lights.

And, while the HW-MA-8-120 processors have clocks, they don't have astronomical 'dawn' and 'dusk' trigger capabilities, depending on date of the year. But, the HWV-2B keypads have two input terminals that if contacted to the COMMON, will act as if the upper or the lower button was pressed. This could be used with an astronomical clock mechanism to trigger the button, which would then activate whatever 'dusk' and 'dawn' zones or scenes are programmed for that function, like outdoor lights and so on!

2026-06-19, Friday

Have been trying to get help from approved Lutron dealers (see Journal)

Have started investigating the structure or configuration of the hardware. According the the Brave Browser AI agent, the HW-MA-8-120 is one of the earliest generations of HomeWorks Interactive and is more or less compatible with the next generation HWI-MI-120.

GrafikEye addresses:

  • Press and hold SCENE1 and OFF buttons simultaneously until scene buttons 'waterfall'; Press FADE+ to show address in LED window; Press and hold SCENE1 and OFF buttons simultaneously until unit returns to normal mode
    • A1 - Master Bedroom - 6-zone GRX-3106
    • A2 - Living Room
    • A2 - Kitchen - 6-zone
    • A3 - Family Room - 4-zone
    • A1 - Ashley Bedroom - 3-zone

2026-06-21, Sunday

Installed the CyberPower 650VA UPS today, by quickly switching off the Homeworks processor in mechanical room, unplugging from wall outlet, then plugging into the UPS, then switching the Homeworks processer back on.

Yesterday, I rigged up a Puppy Linux box ('mouth') to the mechanical room HW-MA-8-120 processor via RS-232 cable. Using the following command I am able to capture the output from the processor, datetime stamping each line and writting to a log file:

  • # stty -F /dev/ttyS0 9600
  • # cat /dev/ttyS0 | sed "/^$/ d ; s/\(.*\)/date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S \1'/e" | tee -a <logfile>

Some how, I sent a command to the processor that now leaves the keypad LED lights on all the time, once they are turned on by an event. There were three specific commands that I sent to the processor in an attempt to ascertain if it knew the Homeworks Interactive command set. Apparently not:

  • RSD
  • RST
  • HELP

Thinking that the L in 'HELP' may have enabled the persistent LED illumination (probably a diagnostic or testing feature used during system installation), I sent a single 'L' hoping it would toggle the behavior back off, but it did not.

I was hoping that when I power-cycled the system when installing the UPS that that action might reset the LED diagnostic, but it did not. I am still seeing the persistent LED behavior.

Thankfully, the power-cycle event proved that the on-board backup battery is still alive and kicking, since the programming is still there and the persistent LED diagnostic is still turned on.