Erratic c-bus switche behaviour?

Hi folks,

I have a strange one.

My C-Bus all of a sudden started not behaving on the light button press. Sometimes lights don’t come on, whilst multiple pressing sometimes makes them come on and the preset light switches don’t turn the c-bus on the way it did before.

This occurred totally randomly…I left the house and it was fine, came home and lights all behaving weirdly.

Can anyone help with this issue or has seen it before? I tried a light mains reset and that didn’t work. Should I try turning off the house mains power and see if that works?

HELP please…my 85 lights in my house are now becoming unusable.

Thank you.

Happy Wanderer

 

There are a number of faults that can cause these issues. The most common is a failed/failing power supply. A Cbus system has multiple power supplies that share the load and if one fails the voltage can drop to a point where these sort of symptoms appear. If you are up to it you can test this by removing a switch unit and measuring the DC voltage across the two terminals (this is safe as Cbus switches use low voltage DC. Don't go poking around inside a switchboard). Anything less than 20V is suspicious, and below 15V nothing much will work. Power supplies are usually present in output units like dimmers and relays which involves replacing the entire unit. This will require a licensed electrician.

Cbus devices can also fail and upset communications on the bus. This is harder to test without specialised equipment.

Finally, the cable itself can develop a fault at junctions due to moisture or rodents etc.

You are unlikely to be able to solve this problem yourself in an acceptable time frame. I recommend you find yourself an electrician familiar with Cbus. You don't say where you are located so a recommendation is difficult.

 

Thanks very much for the information.
The testing you recommended might be beyond what I want to fiddle with.
I live in Randwick, Sydney.

Can you recommend a qualified C-bus electrician who could diagnose the types of problems you describe?

Thank you for your reply.

Kind regards

HW

 

I'm in adelaide so can't be much help. Hopefully someone else on the forums will chime in. Alternately give Clipsal/Schneider a call and they can give you a list of approved cbus installers.