Override a PIR

Hi folks,

Have a PIR installed in a corridor which is working great. PIR brings on a few lights and then 30 seconds later these lights go off as requested.

Also have a two button Saturn which switches on the same lights. What I want to achieve is an override from this switch which will turn these lights ON and KEEP them on until the switch is set to OFF. So far the switch is bringing on the lights however they keep going off automatically after 30 seconds.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Conor

 

Have a look at CIS Application Note 06-021-1, which I have attached here.

 

I tried to do a similar thing in my ensuite a while ago without much luck. Maybe its time for me to revisit. I found two complications;

1. The keypad is within range of the PIR. So if I want to turn the light off manually as I leave the room, it turns off, but the PIR turns it back on again. (I suppose the solution here is to ramp down over say 4s. However the ramp rate is set fairly fast for the ramp-up - I don't want to wait 4sec for ramp up when I turn the light on manually)

2. If the PIR turns the lights up to 20% (don't want them too bright for midnight bathroom runs!), but then I manually dim up a bit more (say, to 30-40%), the PIR seeemed to still retrigger and dim them back down. Or is that because my PIR sensitivity is not set right, and the PIR is still triggering the night time movement?

Or should this all have worked, and I just misconfigured something?

 

I have just read the application note and I feel that there is an error.

Surely using the same "named" group (Light 1) to switch the "enable and disable" is incorrect.

The moment the PIR detects movement it switches the "Light 1" Group On and because the "Light 1" Group disables the PIR it has effectively disabled itself.
It will loop through this until it stops detecting motion. Lots of C-Bus traffic? Or is this the desired behavior?

If it is correct could you explain to me the workings so I can get my head around the logic.

Cheers.

 

Not so. The way the unit handles in-coming and out-going messages is slightly different. Out-going messages on Group Addresses don't get re-processed as in-coming messages to see if they affect one of the other groups in the unit, hence the PIR does not disable itself.

Having the same group on multiple blocks (not keys) is not allowed on a key unit or PIR. The enable/disable group is handled as a special case rather than as a standard group address/block which allows it to have the same group as the PIR controlled group. This special treatment means that it can receive commands over the network to enable/disable the PIR yet it is not affected by what the PIR bits in that unit are doing, even when the movement events are affecting the same group.

 

So after a little playing around last night, I remembered the stumbling block I ran into.

What I want to achieve in my ensuite is this:

In the room, I have a dimmable ceiling light, a flourescent vanity light and an extractor fan.
If I walk in the room at night, ceiling light ramps up over 4s to 25%.
When I walk out, light turns off after say 2 mins.
Whilst in the room, if increase the brightness of the the ceiling light, it stays at my selected brightness, but still turns off after I leave the room.

Whilst in the room, if I turn on the shower extractor and/or the vanity flouro, they also turn off after 2 mins of leaving the room.

Plus, if I turn the lights off as I walk out the door, I don't want the PIR to retrigger them immediately.

And I still need the ability to override the PIR (eg, wife is having a bath, and wants to keep the lights at 25%, but she is not necessarily moving enough to retrigger the PIR).

There just seem to be too many variables and situations, so it ends up that its just easier to forget about the PIR, and just turn the lights on and off manually..

 

I'm glad we got that all sorted out