Honeymoon is over!

Hello, now that my Cbus system has been functioning flawlessly for 6 months - I thought I had better have a go at breaking something.

I have two separate loads.

OutdoorEasternLights and OutdoorWesternLights. I had these loads controled by button 1 and button 2 of a saturn 6 gang switch. They were dimmable and the Key Functions for key 1 and 2 were

Short Press: Idle
Short Release: Toggle
Long Press: Downcycle
Long Release: End Ramp

Now I dont know if this is the correct behaviour but what was happening was when I short press key 1 the lights would toggle on or off. When I held the button long press key 1 it would ramp the lights up and then if i pressed long press again it would ramp the lights down and if I long pressed again it would ramp the lights up again, etc.

What I've done now is to change the block assignment so that both OudoorEasternLights and OutdoorWesternLights are on the same key: key1. The Key Functions have not changed. But now the behaviour is short press - the lights toggle on and off (good) but when I long press the first time the lights ramp up and when I subsequently long press key 1 again the lights continue to ramp up. If i long press again the lights just continue to ramp up. I would like them to ramp up and then ramp down on subsequent long presses.

Geez - what a long post!!.

Is there something obvious that I'm missing here??

Thanks in advance Dak.

 

Does this help
http://www.cbusforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245

Mick

 

Thanks for the reply znelbok.


So basically at the moment i cant achieve the desired functionality with a single key on the saturn.

Could I use one of my CTouch to provide the desired functionality.

Because the single loads that are controlled by the system have a particular functionality when dimming, and the end user expects that functionality, it would be nice to have the same functionality accross all loads that are dimmable regardless of whether they are single or multiple loads being controlled.

Is it the firmware in the saturn switches which has the "known" issue?

Seems unfortunate that because the units are not user firmware upgradeable, I will need to purchase a new switch. Could understand the need for purchasing a new switch which has new firmware which provides new/additional functionality. But to me it seems like I would need to purchase a new switch for a firmware upgrade that will fix a bug to provide functionality which should be inherent.

From an enduser point of view when you have spent a considerable amount of money on hardware -it is a little harder to cough up the additional funds for functionality that should be provided.

OK, OK rant over !!!

 

Hi Dak

The way I see it there are a couple of paths you can take. One is to try to get the boys in the CIS brains trust to revamp the C-Bus protocol and much of its behaviour or you could simply use a single group address / tag on the two output channels and use that same GA on a standard dimmer key input. If you still want to have seperate control via other inputs then use logic (or) in the output unit for the two channels in question.

If it was me I would be going the plan B.

Unless I missed something in your posts this might be a simple case of approaching from the wrong direction and making things more complicated than they have to be.

 

Thanks Phil.H

Plan B is the way to go.

Always with the simple solution - thats why i'm the end user and thankfully there are integrators and experts that are willing to help.

I dont need to have separate control of the loads. I will simply use single group address on the output channels.

PS - my problems are usually simple, and yes i'm sure its the way I approach these problems that makes the solutions seem complicated. Thanks again, much appreciated.

Dak.

 

Dak,

This bugs me. I have an early Neo unit on my desk which I just tested, and it doesn't exhibit this behaviour. I wonder if you could let me know the firmware version (far right-hand column in the Toolkit unit scan results) of the offending key unit.

I saw the referred thread but I can't remember fixing this problem. I'd hate to discover that it still needs fixing. It might just be the way you approached the problem, but we work hard here to get the units to do what is expected, not what is unexpected.

Don

 

Thanks Don,

Will check when i get home and post the firmware version.

Dak.


Firmware version of the 6 Gang Saturn Switch is 1.5.0.

 

Firmware version 1.5.0

Don,

the 6 gang saturn switch has firmware version 1.5.0

Cheers

 

Thanks

I'll have a look

Don

 

Dak,

I just confirmed that the behaviour does apply to V 1.5.00 Saturn units as reported by Newman on his last post to this thread:

( http://www.cbusforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245 )


I can also confirm that the behavior has been changed in V 1.6.00 and later Neo, Saturn and Reflections units to fix this issue.

I'm glad that you can work-around the problem by looking at it another way. I find that while being able to do things many ways makes C-Bus confusing at first, it's nice to be able to achieve what you want in the end without resorting to new hardware.

Don

 

Thanks Don,

Agree!

From an end user point of view, its critical that the system does what the user wants it to do. Great that this may be achieved via different routes.

Thanks for the help guys, much appreciated.