Wireless Changes

Wireless Changes

  1. george
    In Toolkit 1.3 Wireless Input Output unit GUI was extended to support 1.5.0 and later firmware versions of Wireless Input Output units. Here is the tutorial that explains what was added and how to use the new features.
    • Key Sets
    • Remote Controls
    • Outputs
    • Key Functions
    Key Sets

    Wireless Input Output units as of firmware 1.5.0 support Key Sets. A Key Set is a set of virtual keys that maps onto the physical keys. The number of Key Sets available in a unit varies in order to use the 16 virtual keys available. Units with 8 and 6 keys can only have 2 Key Sets, while 4 and 2 key units (including plug adaptors) can have up to 4 key sets.

    Basically, Key Sets allow you to have sort of “several units” within one, i.e. you can program several Key Sets to control different groups and have different functions and then be able to activate each Key Set from the same or other units or programms like Schedule Plus.

    By default Key Sets are disabled even though you still can view and modify programming of all virtual keys. To activate Key Sets functionality, go to the tab “Key Functions” and tick “Enable Key Sets”.

    Wireless_KeySetsTurnOn.PNG

    To access a particular Key Set for programming you can use combo box “Selected Key Set” on the Key Functions tab or simply double-click in the unit graphics area.

    Wireless_KeySetsDoubleClick.PNG

    Each time you select a Key Set, all controls on all tabs get refreshed to represent the selected Key Set, so you can program Key Sets 2-4 the same way as the default first Key Set. The Blocks tab has the selected Key Set highlighted with blue colour. (Hint: you can resize or maximise the form to be able to access all blocks and keys on the Blocks tab without scrolling.)

    Wireless_KeySetsBlocksTab.PNG

    Enabling Key Sets and programming keys on more than one Key Set is still not enough to start using this functionality. You need to associate each programmed Key Set with a particular Selector on the Enable Control Group. This can be done on the Global tab.

    Wireless_KeySetControl.PNG

    You need to select or create a Key Set Control Group and select or create one Selector for each programmed Key Set. Message broadcasted onto Enable Control Application to target the selected Control Group and Action Selector, will activate a particular Key Set. For example, to be able to activate Key Set 2 as on the screen shot above, you can program a key on another unit to set the Group “Main Switch” on the Enable Control Application to the value “Main Key Set 2”. When you press that key, Key Set 2 gets activated.

    To program wireless key unit to send commands onto Enable Control Application, “Enable Control” function can be used:

    Wireless_KeySetEnableControl.PNG

    Its first parameter specifies Enable Control Group and the second parameter – Enable Control Action Selector. You can set these parameters either on the Key Functions tab or on detail form that appears if you click on the button to the right from the function combo box.

    When programming wireless key unit to allow changing Key Sets from the same unit, make sure you have Enable Control function programmed on each Key Set that you are going to use. If you program a key on Key Set 1 to activate Key Set 2, but do not program any keys on Key Set 2 to activate Key Set 1, then once you activate Key Set 2, you will not be able to return to Key Set 1 without at least re-powering unit or resetting and reprogramming it.


    Remote Controls

    You could always associate wireless Remote Control unit with wireless key input unit using learn mode. Now in addition to that you can do the same and even more using C-Bus Toolkit.

    Wireless_Remotes.PNG

    If you already have Remote Control learned to a wireless key input unit, it will be automatically added to the database when you open unit for programming. Alternatively you can add Remote Control unit by pressing the “Add new Remote Control” button (green cross), filling in Serial Number (printed on label on the rear of the Remote Control under the cover) and saving changes. When downloading changes to the wireless key input unit, the Serial Number will be saved and thus association between Remote Control and wireless key unit will be established.

    You can associate two Remote Control units with each wireless key input unit, as you can see on the screenshot above. You can assign 10 Remote Control keys to any of 16 wireless input unit keys using combo boxes for each of the two Remote Controls. Items in combo boxes represent wireless input unit keys.


    Outputs

    Wireless_Outputs.PNG

    Outputs tab allows you to configure the parameters of the output channels. For dimmers you can select dimming curve, minimum and maximum levels. For relay type units you can set the turn-on threshold. For all wireless input output units you can set the Saved Level for each channel and configure the desired channel levels on power up.


    Key Functions

    Key Functions tab was reworked to allow programming key parameters. Each key on the wireless key input unit has 5 events: Short Press, Short Release, Long Press, Long Release and Double Click, which were available for programming in the first GUI release. The new release has each event node expandable to allow programming 2 parameters for each of 5 events of each key.

    Wireless_Functions.PNG

    The range and type of values that can be entered depends on the selected function. For example, Toggle and Idle functions do not required any parameters, thus both parameter cells are disabled for them. Retrigger Timer function expects the first parameter to contain the expiry time; Increment function expects the first parameter to be the percentage of the increment and the second parameter to be the ramp rate.