Help with LED dimming / control.

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  • neilhooper
    Automated Home Guru
    • Oct 2008
    • 124

    #16
    I've now got most things working up to a point.

    The dimmers Default and Current Levels are now set to 100%, when I simulate presence in the room all lights show as on and 100% which is what I want. When I clear the occupancy, after 10 seconds (I've changed the timeout), all three revert to light off and showing the dimmer off levels being sent by the API code.

    The thing that I don't understand is, if the lights are off, how do I get light out of them at the dimmer off level? I'm obviously missing something fundamental in my understanding.

    Also, if I do all this, not that I know how yet:-
    Originally posted by Karam View Post
    To get the totally off state (means lights off completely and automation off too) I now realise that you'd have to first turn the level to 0%, then turn the dimmer output to off state, then trigger the dimmer disable (so that automation doesn't try to switch on the lights upon presence).
    does it mean that I would have to 'manually' turn everything back on for the Automation to work, say, the next day?

    I'm sure I'll get there in the end !!!!

    PS I'm on the verge of ordering my full version of Cortex and first batch of hardware to to get my first room up and running as all the cabling is now nearly done in the new extension.
    Last edited by neilhooper; 19 June 2011, 01:31 AM.

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    • Karam
      Automated Home Legend
      • Mar 2005
      • 863

      #17
      Neil,

      As I say, you have 3 states rather than the usual two. You could argue that the colour state is the 'odd one' but the problem is that the mode of operation you want naturally fits in with the intrinsic automation's idea of when to switch a light off - namely when someone is not present. Hence we are using that to switch between colour and white. For a dimmer object OFF does not mean lights at 0% but whatever you choose the OFF value to be. This has other usages even for purely white lights. So to summarise, when the light goes to OFF state it really just goes to a dim level.

      In order to get the fully off state (meaning 0%), you need to set the OFF level to 0%. Question is how/when to do that? Clearly it cannot be just due to lack of presence - since that is the situation where you usually want the coloured lighting, so it could be that you base it on time of day, on someone pressing a button, and/or even something else such as external light levels. Here you will have to construct your own automation regime. I could probably try and second guess what sort of conditions might request the light to be completely off and also a number of possible conditions for automation to be resumed, but essentially to get the light to be completely off you will have to set its off level to 0%, ensure that it is in the off state and then disable the light until you wish to resume automation, at which point you just enable it (disable/enable are triggerable object connections). The API code could still be going through its off level variation even when the light is disabled.

      Comment

      • neilhooper
        Automated Home Guru
        • Oct 2008
        • 124

        #18
        Thanks Karam, all understood now. As ever you've been extremely helpful and patient with me.

        Just as an aside. Do you have any plans in the future to produce a PWM dimmer for LED's / other uses ? I'm thinking that as long as it could output the 12V, that 12V could be wired straight into a LED amplifier that would have its own power supply so no chance of overloading the network power. As I say, it's just a thought / wish.

        Regards,

        Neil.

        Comment

        • Karam
          Automated Home Legend
          • Mar 2005
          • 863

          #19
          Of course it would seem to make sense for us to do that, though rather than provide a general purpose PWM output probably might be better to have the power transistors in the unit itself with a seperated (external) supply input for these.

          Comment

          • neilhooper
            Automated Home Guru
            • Oct 2008
            • 124

            #20
            Great idea, when should we expect it to be available ?

            Comment

            • Karam
              Automated Home Legend
              • Mar 2005
              • 863

              #21
              Not as soon as you'd like ...

              Comment

              • neilhooper
                Automated Home Guru
                • Oct 2008
                • 124

                #22
                I didn't think so ...

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