PAC Power Failure Recovery

G'day

The short version of my question is how does the PAC deal with keeping track of the state of Group Addresses that aren't used in output units? The help says the Power Fail Recovery file is saved automatically but I have reason to believe it's not working properly.

Now on to the long-ish story of where my suspicion comes from...

I have inherited a residential job that has three PACs (which replaced a Minder). Fortunately the original programmer (who's gone OS) left the PICED files with the very well commented logic code. The code uses HEAPS of 'dummy' GAs for various flags and for triggering scenes; none of which are stored in any output units.

Prior to my first visit to this site, the client mentioned that most times after they've had a power failure "odd things happen, lights just go on and off in the evening" and that he'd like a "power recovery scene" if it wasn't too much trouble.

I figured that maybe the system was going into "vacation mode", which is triggered from a dummy group in a Reflection switch, and does switch a few arbitrary lights on and off around the house in the evening. I assured him C-Bus would be able to return itself to its previous state and I would check a few settings and upgrade the PAC firmware when I visited.

When I visited site I checked that all the output units were set to auto-store their levels and I upgraded each of the PACs firmware to the latest (3.43.0). The last PAC to be upgraded was the one with the "Vacation" code. Sure enough, about 30-seconds after upgrading lots of the lights went off, a few came on and after having a bit of a hunt around I saw that the "Vacation Switch" on the Reflection panel was ON. A further look at the PAC code suggested that the "vacation mode" had been triggered.

There is no initialisation code in the PAC and I can't find any logic code or scenes in any of the 3 PACs that will turn the "Vacation Switch" GA ON - it is only turned ON at the switch where it then triggers some code.

For all intents and purposes it seems like the PAC is recovering that group to ON, even though I know for sure it was OFF prior to the PAC re-booting.

Am I missing something obvious? Is there a setting I need to change to make the power fail recovery work? Are there any known bugs with the power fail recovery?

Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Matt

 

The PAC stores the value of all group addresses for all lighting-compatible applications it uses. After a power failure, the values are restored internally, but they are not sent out onto C-Bus.

If you are getting strange behaviour on C-Bus, the first thing you need to do always is to run the C-Bus Diagnostic Utility to see where the C-Bus messages are coming from.

 

Ahh ok...

...that's good to know. I'll head back out there with the Diagnostic Utility.

Thanks for the quick response Darren.

Cheers

Matt

 

Hi,

A little more detail:
- As Darren said, the PAC will restore to the last level of the group, but only in its internal DB.
- The key unit will restore to either the last known level or to a predefined level, depending how it has been configured in Toolkit.
- Neither unit will transmit the level of the group on startup as they both assume they are correct since there is no output unit on the Group and they are required for the conflict resolution to run.

Anyway, since the PAC restores the last known level, it should all hang together if you ensure consistency by either:
- making sure the Key Unit is configured to restore to the previous level.
- adding initialisation code to the PAC to set the group to a known level, and change the Key Unit to restore to the same level.

Good luck!
Mark.

 

Excellent, thanks.

Now I can head back to site with a sensible plan of attack!

Cheers

Matt

 

It would be interesting to hear what your findings are.

I have a similar issue with the GAs going hay-why after some power failures. I have added code in the INITIALISE to setup a GA that Comfort (Alarm Panel) monitors and announces the Time over the keypads.

What I have noticed is, when the Time is announced on the keypards, then the GA's are fine. It is when the time is not announced (after power failure), that the GA's are turned on, including the GAs that are controlled by External Light sensors.

Now regarding C-Bus Diagnostic Utility, would the utility recover, reconnect and still log all messages, quickly enough after a power failure?

Any ideas?

 

Hehe yes you need to reconnect the Utility as soon as possible.

I hope the PIR recovery settings are being added to their firmware soon

 

A change is coming that will enable you to specify whether the PIR is Enabled/Disabled/RememberLastState at power-up. Coming soon, to a sensor near you...

 

Unfortunately, this happens at odd times, while I am not at home or sleeping, and I only see the results when I get home or awake. Like this morning, all the motion controlled lights did not turn on.