B&W C-Touch MKI - Schedule issues

I have an issue which I just wanted to log initially in case others have had a similar issue.

I just discovered that the schedules in my B&W C-Touch MKI have disabled themselves. About 6 months ago they stopped working (my schedules are associated with my sprinklers so it was easy to tell that they'd stop working). I reloaded the project and it all worked again. A couple of months ago they stopped working again and I reloaded and they worked for a few days and they stopped working agan.

I've just uploaded the project from the unit and the status for all the schedules is "disabled". (Interestingly, if I close the project file that I have just uploaded from the unit, close the project file and then reopen it, the schedules say they are "enabled". I'm using Application - Unused, Group - Unused, Level On, which I'd assume is how the "enabled" status gets calculated. As an aside when I open the uploaded project it asks me for the address of the unit which I thought it would have uploaded as a matter of course).

Anyway, my issue is quite possibly related to an unterminated cbus cable which is causing network issues and causing the C-Touch to restart. This sometimes appears to be disabling the schedules. I'll do some more testing and report back on how it all went.

 

I'd suggest that this is a quirk of the project upgrade process. I constructed the project pre-piced and then simply upgraded as opposed to programming the schedules with piced. I will change this to see if there is any difference. As I am controlling sprinklers then I need for the schedule to always be enabled.

No evidence of probing but I believe you can get a cream for it if you've had such an experience.

I haven't done enough investigation to check whether a screen reset means a time warp because where I live its rained for most of the past 6 weeks and so its been advantageous to not have the sprinkler schedules functioning.

Just as anside, and I probably should know this or at least do a search, but the DLT's appear to be getting the time from my C-Touch is that correct? i.e. they are also losing time. Maybe they've been probed and now have time-flu.

 

I haven't connected the remote override at any of my terminations. I know that this is probably frownd upon but I couldn't see the point. I've experienced in the past when hooking up new switches, PIRs etc. or accidently shorting a live CBUS cable that this can cause CTouch to reset. In the early days (about 5 years ago) the CTouch would just freeze but a firmware upgrade seems to have turned the freezing into a reset. I'm assuming that the unterminated cable could be having the same effect as a short and I've also got a PIR removed at the moment with the wires exposed. The exposing seem to correlate with the start of the regular resetting of the CTouch. These are obviously easy to fix and see if they resolve my issues, the reason for posting them was to try and help the other poster and I'll report back if it does help.

That's exactly what has happened on a couple of occassions and I've simply switched the sprinklers off manually (or in the case of my neighbour they came over and turned off the taps, gotta love hi-tech solutions). However, what I can't fathom is that this somehow disables all the schedules or this could be a separate issue altogether.

Thanks for the tip, I was being lazy through using the pulse. The CTouch has run the schedules for about 6 years without a problem and it hasn't been until about the last 9-12 months where things have started to go pear shape.

I'll hopefully gather some more evidence over the weekend as to what is happening.

Thanks for the help and advice Nick. Cheers, cc&c.

 

Another excellent suggestion that would produce the symptons that I am experiencing but I use bootlace ferrules for connecting and terminating all my CBUS connections (except for the RJ45 connections of course). Thanks again.

 

Well the resetting/losing time issue is resolved.

I re-connected the PIR and stuck a switch on the end of the unterminated cable that I had and the C-Touch has kept time correctly for the past two days (before it would be lucky to go 5 hours without resetting). I'd say the issue was the unterminated cable as it wasn't exactly tidy. The cable has been like it for quite some time but I obviously disturbed it when ironically I was cleaning up some of my wiring. Anyway, one issue solved just scence triggering to go (new post).