Key4Win is the Microsoft Windows companion for the KY-series of electronic door controllers by Innovative Design Delft. Key4Win allows you to hook up a KY-series door controller to a personal computer with an RS-232 serial cable, and then manage the door controller using Key4Win on your PC.
Key4Win enables you to open the door(s), to maintain lists of keys on the PC, to copy these lists to the memory of the door controller, and to monitor the operation of the controller.
Key4Win saves information to database files on the PC, with the file extension '.k4w'. The information saved in each database includes:
Please note that the selected COM port is not a property of Key4Win itself, but of the currently loaded database. This allows you to easily maintain seperate databases for multiple door controllers on one PC.
When you start Key4Win, you see a window containing five elements. From the top down, they are:
1. The menu bar Allows access to all the functions of Key4Win. 2. The toolbar Offers shortcuts to some of the items from the menu bar. 3. The log window Shows what the door controller is doing. 4. The key window Shows the keys in the currently loaded database file. 5. The status bar Gives you a bit of feedback and help.
You may find it helpful to run Key4Win and play around with it for a while before reading this manual. If you are used to Microsoft Windows applications, most of how Key4Win works will quickly be familiar.
It is important to understand that when you're manipulating the list of keys in Key4Win, all the changes you make are limited to the PC. It is not until you execute a 'Synchronize operation' (see below), that Key4Win starts updating the memory of the door controller so that it begins to match the key list on the PC.
Keys can be brought into the current database using any of the following four ways. You are free to choose the one that most suits you.
An alternative to double-clicking is to click only once on the key number, and then click the
'L => K' button on the toolbar. This does exactly the same thing.
A second alternative is to click only once, and then select the menu
option 'Keys/Copy from log'. This also does the same thing.
There are two ways to start editing keys in the key list. One is to double-click on a key number in the key list: this will bring up a dialog box that allows you to edit the data of the key. The other way is to select one or more keys, and then choose the menu option 'Keys/Edit keys...'. This will bring up a dialog box for each of the keys that you selected.
You can select keys in the key list using the standard Microsoft Windows conventions. We will list them here for the sake of completeness:
Selected keys show up blue. When selecting keys, only clicking on the leftmost column (the key number) works.
To delete keys from the list, you have to select them first (in the same way as described under 'B: Editing keys').
After you have selected one or more keys, you can delete them from the database using either of the following two ways:
Take care when deleting keys: it may be difficult to get them back!
When you feel you are done changing the database's key list on the PC, you can copy the key numbers in the database to the door controller. Copying the key numbers is called a 'Synchronize operation', and after it's done the controller will only open the door for the keys from the database.
It's easy to start the synchronize operation: use either one of the following methods:
When you start a synchronize operation, Key4Win begins communicating with the door controller. It fetches a list of keys currently in the memory of the controller, determines the differences, and sends commands to make the memory of the door controller equal to the key list on the PC. All this can take up to one or two minutes. After the synchronize operation is completed, the door controller will only open the door for keys that are in the list it just received from the PC.
Key4Win detects keys in the door controller that aren't in the database on the PC, it asks you what it should do: to remove these keys from the door controller or to add them to the database. If you've been deleting keys from the database on the PC, you'll probably answer 'Yes' to also remove them from the door controller. If you're starting a new database or if you've been adding keys manually (using the master key) you'll probably want to answer 'No' to add the keys to the PC database and keep them in the key controller.
If the key list contains a lot of keys, it may happen that the memory of the door controller isn't large enough to contain all of them. You will be informed of this when you attempt to synchronize. When this happens, the synchronize operation will be incomplete: the door controller will open the door for some of the keys in the PC database, but not for all of them. The only remedy is to delete keys from the database on the PC or to buy a KY-series door controller with a larger memory.
Usually, the first key in a key list on the PC is the master key. Please note that although it is possible to delete the master key from the list on the PC, the 'Synchronize operation' will never succeed in actually removing the master key from the memory of the door controller. During the next 'Synchronize operation', Key4Win will simply tell you that it found a new key in he controller.
The only way to get rid of the master key is by clearing the entire memory of the door controller. There are two ways to do this:
After you perform either one of these actions, the first key that is physically held to a door contact will be made the new master key. This takes a few seconds: please don't be alarmed if nothing happens at first. Please note: until you've done this, synchronising won't work!
| Warning: | Take care when clearing the memory of the door controller!
It is highly recommended that you always perform a 'Synchronize operation' just before clearing the door controller. |
When you have a key that isn't in the key memory of the door controller, and you hold that key to a door contact, the KY-series door controller will not accept any keys on that contact for some time as a security measure.
Resetting the door controller by choosing the menu option 'Controller/Reset controller' has the same effect as temporarily interrupting the power supply to the controller. All contacts that were blocked because of unknown keys will become active again. The doors will close immediately.
Nothing will happen to the key memory of the controller during a reset: resetting is a harmless operation.
| Warning: | Take care not to confuse "resetting" the controller with
"clearing the memory" of the controller!
(Clearing the memory of the controller is described in the previous chapter.) |
The following limitations apply:
The latest version of this manual will always be available at the Key4win homepage.
The latest version of the Key4win (2.6) program is available for download here.
Additional information on the KY-series locks can be found at the Innovative Design page and the key pages.
For questions or if you'd like to give us feedback about Key4Win such as comments, suggestions or bug reports, email to contact@idd.nl.