fan control from single button - How?

Hi

I put in fous fan controllers yesterday and I want to set up the switch so that a single button will toggle between, off, low, med & high.

Is this possible and how do I do it. I read the help file in toolkit and could not find any reference to it - although I think I am going blind as I seem to be missing a lot of things there days that are right in front of me....

Something like the shutter toggle is what I am after, but with four states, not three.

Mick

 

Yea, I found the help file a bit misleading as tends to imply you can only use a single button on a DLT when it actually works fine on any switch.

On the fan controller under Configuation set it as Master then create a new Trigger Group (e.g. Fan Control), and create an action selector (e.g Fan 1 etc) for each Controller (assuming you want independant control). If you're not using a DLT to trigger then go to the Fan Speeds and Labels tab and click Clear Labels to stop it broadcasting unecessary labels. Then in the Channel 1 box create a new group for this fan.

On a switch (e.g. Neo) select the 'fan speed cylce' function, select scene 8 as the Scene (it doesn't really matter but that seems to be the recommended one), then on the scene setup button (beside the Function box), select the trigger group you created before and the appropriate scene number and action selector.

Hey presto, each press on the button cycles around the speeds. The only confusion I found was when I first tested it it only came on in high speed mode. Then I realised it starts in hi speed mode for a couple of seconds (set in the controller dialog) before dropping to the set speed, so you need to wait a bit after each press for it to settle down.

How it works is that the Neo switch just issues a set scene on the specified trigger group and action selector which the controller sees and then steps to the next speed. The controller then outputs a message on the group selected in the controllers channel 1 box giving the current speed as a percentage, which you can pick up in logic and change the speed of your fan animation (unless you have a life of course )

 

Fan Controller Details

Hi Guys,

Good to see you're getting into the Fan Controller!
I'd just like to clarify a couple of points...

It's important that you create a Trigger Group AND Action Selector for each fan (or set of fans) you want to control. When the Fan Controller turns off it issues an Indicator Kill command for the Trigger Group. If you are using a second AS on the same group then this Indicator Kill will mess up your indicators.

This is the Kick Start which is setting the fan to high for a couple of second to get it moving. If your fan is able to start at Low without stalling you can disable this.

I never thought of using the group to control your animation speed, but why not!
It's intended for use when you have multiple fans you want to control in the same cycle. The master unit receives the TG/AS and does the cycling, then all the slave fans just follow the lighting group, ensuring all your fans stay in sync.

Have fun with the new toy!
Mark.

 

Good point. Obvious now you mention it. I've only installed one so far

Might be useful to put a mention of that in the help file. Also the fact that you can use a standard switch to toggle the speeds, not just a DLT.

A logic function in PICED to change the animation speed of images would save a lot of mucking around too.

Good product though.

 

Hiya,

I've forwarded a link to this thread to our Helper. I'm sure he'll appreciate the suggestions.

A lot of effort went into getting it right - Good to hear you like it!

Mark.

 

Now all I need is the Fan Controller Master-Slave Firmware in the Shutter Relay so I can syncronize the blinds on a single switch.

 

Thanks for the great replies guys - I have mine all set up now.

Why does the Master - Slave scenario exist?

I can't work out what the advantage would be. If you have two or more fans that you want to run together then you would just use the same group address in each - is that what master slave is for?

From what I can read, it would appear that it is just to allow for DLT programming.

Thanks

Mick

 

Thanks Ash

If I had several fan controllers for one big room, why couldn't I set them all as master with the same group names in the triggers/actions and group?
or
Why couldn't I just have them as standalone and have the same group name assigned to them. They couldn't get out of sync because it is just a single group address.

So it is really just there to make single button control a reality.

Still don't get it but I will accept it (must be missing a piece of the jigsaw somewhere here).

Mick

 

Mick

As you say, if you're controlling the units by just setting the lighting group to a specific level then you can control multiple fans that way. They will remain in sync.

The trouble comes when you want to control multiple units from a single button, i.e. you want multiple fans to cycle through the speeds sequentially using the trigger. Initially, things will work, they will be in sync, but what happens when one of the fans falls out of sync due to a communication error? What happens if the fans were previously programmed using different triggers or groups and, at the time they were re-programmed, they were at different speeds? What happens if the units were configured with different power recovery settings? The units work by advancing their speed 1 step at a time in response to a trigger, so there would be no way to synchronise them without sending some form of additional lighting command.

Another reason for it is the dynamic labels. The Fan Controllers transmit a lighting label command when they change speed. If all the Fan Controllers tried to transmit at once there could be chaos on the network for a bit. If the different Fan Controllers had different labels there's no guarantee which label would win.

The master/slave set-up solves these problems.

If you are just controlling the unit by setting a lighting level on the lighting application group then you can safely ignore the whole master/slave thing.

 

Hence my comment about adding the master-slave firmware to the shutter relay. Operating multiple blinds with a one button shuttter toggle command requires writing logic at the moment. Of course you also need to be able to control them independently...

 

I know this thread has been not been used for a long time, but its the little, simple things that had me stuffed with these controllers. Like kickstart enabled by default - and im pressing the button wondering why im only getting medium, high and off....someone once said something about patience being a virtue..

After spending a bit of time in the help file for this i kind of had it working, but the items Mark mentioned helped - which are probably common sense, but this is my first time actually playing with one of these controllers after hearing about them for the last 18 months.

However im glad i dont have to stuff around in Logic to have fans working with one button