wireless not reporting properly

Discussion in 'C-Bus Toolkit and C-Gate Software' started by JasonCox, Sep 6, 2006.

  1. JasonCox

    JasonCox

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    I was doing a wireless commision the other day that someone else had wired and I noticed something that realy freaked me out for a moment.

    I noticed that ALL of the dimmer units came up as LEADING EDGE dimmers.

    Now, this was scary as the whole job needed TRAILING EDGE dimmers. So I got some switches off of the wall (which was not good because it wasn't the best installation and bits of the solid wall started to come off with the switches!:eek: ).

    The switches were infact trailing edge, but was reported wrong in toolkit. I checked other jobs and yes - the same problem. Can this be fixed?
     
    JasonCox, Sep 6, 2006
    #1
  2. JasonCox

    george

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    Hi Jason,

    Leading Edge and Trailing Edge dimmers have the same unit type. It is only catalogue numbers that are different. Thus when you scan wireless network and there is no matching database units, Toolkit picks the first entry from the catalogue that matches unit type, which happens to be Leading Edge. Catalogue number information is not available on a physical unit.

    Units will appear with correct description if you prepared the database by scanning barcodes, or manually adding units to database. However if you don't have the database like in this particular case, you still can fix the problem by recreating it from network and manually altering catalogue number.

    Leading Edge dimmers have letter "L" in the catalogue number. For example 5858D1L2AA. Trailing Edge have "T": 5858D1T2AA. So if you replace "L" with "T" for all database dimmers, you will see Trailing Edge dimmers on the network as well (you may need to select Network node first and then Units node to refresh the lists).

    Hope this helps,
    George
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 6, 2006
    george, Sep 6, 2006
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  3. JasonCox

    ashleigh Moderator

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    George's answer is correct. To add a little more:

    The units have a unit type, which is not the same as a catalogue number.

    The unit type is there to tell Toolkit which of its internal bits 'n bobs it needs to use to commission the unit.

    Over the years the unit type has been hijacked to try and show more, and more information, heading in the direction of what you get from the catalogue number.

    Unfortunately, unit types are limited to 8 characters (for all sorts of other complex reasons I won't go into here), and catalog numbers are generally a lot more than 8 chars. So putting the cat number in the unit is not possible (it won't fit - and cat numbers actually make Toolkits job MORE difficult.)

    Simply using a different unit type is a less-than-satisfactory approach, for other reasons.

    What's the long term solution? Dunno. It gets to be a very difficult one.

    Thanks for bringing this back on the agenda, though, we will have to revisit it sometime.
     
    ashleigh, Sep 6, 2006
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  4. JasonCox

    JasonCox

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    Maybe the short-term solution is to put a sticker on the front side of the grid or something. Taking switches off of walls to double check that the previous electrician has done his job properly can be time-consuming and in this case - damage walls etc.

    Would be nice if the guy who fitted the bloody thing in the first place put the bar-code there as well! ;)
     
    JasonCox, Sep 11, 2006
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  5. JasonCox

    JohnC

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    I have never understood why the barcode sticker can't be placed under the cover on the FRONT of the switch.

    Maybe it's just me, but I can see no sensible reason why the sticker should be placed on the rear when it goes thru production...
     
    JohnC, Sep 11, 2006
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