Help unpairing Saturn Wireless buttons

[Greg Hudson]

G'Day All.
I'm a new user on this forum. A programmer with 30+ years of experience in many languages, but just beginning with cbus.

I'm in the pre-purchase phase of my cbus hardware, and want to start with a VERY simple setup - just 2 x 4 button wireless units. One a relay, the other a TE dimmer unit.

What I'm trying to do is figure out HOW to 'unpair' the top 2 buttons and reassign them so that the top left button controls channel 1, and the top right button controls channel 2. The bottom 2 buttons will be used to control the top 2 buttons on the other switch. (Both switch banks are in the same room).

On the relay bank, I want the top 2 buttons to toggle on/off to 100% brightness - these will be controlling 4 x compact fluro's on each channel. (And yes, I know I need a 1 uF capacitor on these channels).

On the Dimmer bank, I want the top 2 buttons to toggle on/off to 95% brightness (to extend the lamp life). This would be on the short press.
On the long press, I want the dimming to toggle - either up or down (or both).

Ideally, I would like to do all the above WITHOUT using the Toolkit - meaning I could get away without purchasing a Wireless Gateway, PC Interface, & Power Supply, however if I can't do what I want using the key-poke method (directly on the switch), I'll revert to the Toolkit if required (which I have installed already).

So... My question is...

Would anyone have a SAMPLE (or working) Toolkit project they could email me with the settings for either one or both of the configs for the switch banks that have had the top 2 buttons UNPAIRED please ?

I've spoken to a C-BUS trainer, and he says it *IS* possible, but did not elaborate - hence my call for help here.

Thanks in advance.

Regards, Greg Hudson.
President, Hudson Software.
www.hudsoft.com
ghudson@hudsoft.com

[Newman]

Welcome to the forum!

You'll definitely need to use Toolkit to set up what you want. The push button Learn programming sets up the top pair of buttons as Channel 1 and the next pair of buttons as channel 2, which is not what you want.

Before being able to program the units in Toolkit you'll need to do the following:
Use the push button programming to create a network
Assign a group address to at least 1 channel on each unit using the push button programming.
Add the Wireless Gateway to the wireless network.Everything you want is relatively easy to achieve (IMHO!) from the Toolkit UI for the unit. The key Function you're looking for is Toggle Dim Dn Cycle, which is available in the Functions drop down box. You'll need to assign the Key Group and the Output Channel Group to the same Group Address. Then for the dimmer, down on the Output tab of the UI (click the 'Advanced >>' button), set the Maximum Level as 95. Do the same thing for the second key and channel.

For keys 3 and 4, you select the appropriate key Function (either Toggle Dim Dn Cycle or On/Off) and then set the Group Address to match the channel that you want to control.

[KevinH]

It is really easy to do this with toolkit, all my switches are setup this way. The default automatic pairing of buttons using learn mode seems a little wasteful but I suspect it's because it was desireable to be able to enter learn mode this way.

IIRC If you overide this behaviour you lose the ability to use (enter) learn mode for future switch / remote additions which in itself isn't a big issue as you can do this from other wireless paired switches.

Just a slight warning though... should the programming in a switch become corrupted and the network connectivity fail then you also can't restore it anymore. There is no factory reset button. I have had a switch in this bricked condition and it had to be returned to Clipsal to be revived. I am not sure if altering the pairing of the top two buttons compounded this situation.

Kevin

[ashleigh]

It is really easy to do this with toolkit, all my switches are setup this way. The default automatic pairing of buttons using learn mode seems a little wasteful but I suspect it's because it was desireable to be able to enter learn mode this way.

It was done this way to allow learn to give a pair of buttons for dim up/down. THEN the compromises started :(
The method of entry into learn, by coincidence uses that button pair as well, and for entry to learn on a specific channel this turned out to be rather fortuitous.

IIRC If you overide this behaviour you lose the ability to use (enter) learn mode for future switch / remote additions which in itself isn't a big issue as you can do this from other wireless paired switches.

Correct.

Just a slight warning though... should the programming in a switch become corrupted and the network connectivity fail then you also can't restore it anymore. There is no factory reset button. I have had a switch in this bricked condition and it had to be returned to Clipsal to be revived. I am not sure if altering the pairing of the top two buttons compounded this situation.
I've had a couple of bricked units from early firmware (way back). All revisions of firmware manufactured since about mid 2005 have extra protection in, and *should* always allow entry into learn even if you do strange things to the button programming.

[KevinH]

All revisions of firmware manufactured since about mid 2005 have extra protection in, and *should* always allow entry into learn even if you do strange things to the button programming.

It was very possible mine was one of the early units - I haven't had any problems with later versions at all...

K

[conor1]

yes i have had some problems in the last 6 months with saturns doing the same thing with the latest firmware and had to send them back for relacement.
cheers conor.