2 Gang Saturn Wireless Issue

Hi John,

When you scan the network do you see this Unit in the list or does it show up as "Error - failed to scan"?

 

It usually shows up, once or twice I got the 'Failed to scan' but usually it shows up with a reasonable description (ie Saturn switch) but when I click on it for more info (or to add it to the database) the toolkit reports that it does not have the details of the unit and I need to update the software. When it does find it the Serial No. field is 'N/A'. Also it seems to have a great deal of trouble finding it, more often than not the unit does not show up at all. Currently the wireless side of the network is reporting the gateway and a single 2 Gang plug adapter, which is odd as there are 2 relay plug adapters and 2 dimmer plug adapters but the gateway (which is sitting in the same room for testing) has a great deal of trouble seeing them. The relay units configured quite easily in learn mode but the dimmer took many attempts (don't know why), and in the end the relay units sometimes show up and the dimmersnever have (puzzling). As a stand alone the Saturn switch works a treat, great idea to make them 'drop-in' replacements. I suspect that I'm having some issues with the wireless signal tho' as looking at the gateway C-Bus Status it's showing 921 error packets, with 1393 received (don't know if the errors are counted in the 1393 or not). Also of note, 1222 transmit attempts and 1095 collisions with only 173 succesfull transmissions (which on the face of it seems rather low).

The current wireless side is a gateway, 2relay plugs, 2 dimmer plugs and a two switch saturn plus a wireless remote. At the moment only the gateweay and one of the relay plugs is showing up in the toolkit, and it's sitting on address 255 and any attmep to shift it to a different address results in 'Unit readdress failed' '.CheckNetwork and Unit'. hen, shorlty after the toolkit dies and windows reports this and creates an error log. This is running on Windows 2000 with the toolkit install from a day or two ago.

Any hints in this lot?

Ta

John

 

Nasty, it does certainly sound like you're having communications issues with the units.. are the units installed with the C-Clip in the correct manner as described in the installation guide?

Are you able to program the plug adaptors OK?

 

1) The SAW filter at the front end of the RF C-Bus units will give protection against overloading by nearby transmitters outside the band, but will give no protection for a transmitter operating within the 433MHz LIPD band (433.92MHz +/- ~2MHz)

2) The 433MHZ LIPD band is shared with several other services. The frequency band 420-450MHz is allocated in Australia as follows:
a) Primary Service - Radiolocation (radar, etc)
b) Secondary Services - Fixed, Mobile
c) Secondary Services - Amateur
d) Secondary Services - Amateur Sattelite

The primary service has more "rights" than other services, and is not likely to lose in any dispute about interference with other services.

The Fixed, Mobile services used in this band are generally in the range 420MHz - 430MHz ( Sydney Olympics made this a popular band). The mobile services would be typically under 100W, and might cause problems for short periods of time. The fixed services would most likely be located at the tops of hills, and could have powers into the kW range.

Amateur stations in Australia are limited to a maximum power of 400W delivered to the antenna, and must abide by the limitations of field strength set by the ACA in any area frequented by people (includes homes) This means that high field strengths can not be expected anywhere near an amateur station except way out of reach at the top of a tower, otherwise the station is not operating within the legal guidelines.

Amateur Satellite stations generally have their antennas pointing upward, and rarely are these antennas mounted within buildings.


Don

 

Stumped!

Well, I've reset the wall plate back to factory, unplugged all other units, removed the batteries from the RF remote, power reset the gateway, taken the batteries out of the wireless doorbell, moved the gateway to within a couple of feet of the wall plate, deleted the wireless network from toolkit and tried again.

Then set the gateway up onto the same 'network' as the wall plate (this took a couple of goes) and then added the wireless network in toolkit. If anything it's even worse than before! Now all it manages is 'Error - failed to scan unit' for the wall plate. The packet error rates reported by the gateway are still way too high. As an aside the wall c-clip is on the left, but as a further test I reset the wall plate and then attempted to 'learn' the gateway and a nearby plug unit (again a couple of feet). After a couple of attempts the gateway's lights reported that it had 'joined' with the plug unit. Looking via the toolkit, only the gateway unit showed up at all - so cannot be due to the wall mounting of the wall plate, as the plug units suffer from the same problem.

There are no RF transmitters in use anywhere in the house (having de-batteried the doorbell units), the c-buss units are all within a couple of feet and still don't talk to each other. As a side issue I can get the remote to talk to the units, but it seems rather sluggish - things can take a few presses before any action - most frustrating. In suburban Glen Iris I would not expect any large RF transmitters nearby. The wireless TCP/IP seems to work rather well (different band I guess).

Any further suggestions before I resort to rewiring a room I was planning to leave wireless? Bit hard to return the wall plate as it's been installed once.... I had hoped to avoid rewiring this room as it has a flat steel roof so there's no space in the ceiling.

John

 

Hi John,

It does sound like the unit is faulty.. contact Technical Support on 1300 722 247 and they will arrange for you to return it and a changeover unit provided.

 

Ah, but there's the rub, which unit ;-( As the gateway has trouble seeing any of the units is it the gateway, or is one of the other units causing the problem? Could do with an RF sniffer to see whats going on. Can the gateway relay from the wireless side for troubleshooting? This might also show up any external RF problems. There's 2 plug relay units, 2 dimmer units and the wall plate, the only common item is the gateway (and the so-so performance of the remote). Its harder to turn off the wall plaate for testing as I'll have to take it out of the wall. I'll try that tommorrow and see if it helps.

John

 

More testing

I've disconnected the wall plate unit, reset the 4 plug units and set them up in a group and added in the gateway. The gateway still fails to find most of the units and cannot communicate with any of the units well enough to get all of their details. It could be caused by external interference but given they are in one room, if that is the problem then wireless is never going to work (and the RF doorbell does). So I don't think it's that. The evidence would then point to the gateway unit being faulty so I'll chase up a replacement. Also, the toolkit does not seem to deal with this type of problem too well, it crashed frequently when attempting to talk to the units, leaving lock files behind which prevent it from accessing the network without a full restart.

Thanks for the help.

John

 

Yes, we noticed this about a fortnight ago and its fixed for the next build. Will leave Ashleigh and others to comment on the wireless issues.

 

Hi Guys
Just a stab in the dark here ....John mentioned the room he has the cbus wireless kit in has a steel roof , would the steel roof have any effect on the rf signal ....?????

Frank

 

While John is looking around the room, it would be well to consider what else is in the room or nearby. e.g. laptop, computer, burglar alarm components, radio remote controls. What else is in the room or nearby? It sounds like we are assuming the interference is always there? What other 'times' have the symptoms been checked? Radio problems can be frustrating to resolve and often require a look outside the obvious?

 

This may be a stab in the dark but I have personally experienced, RF doorbells preventing RF security systems from operating.
Which seems somewhat strange as you would only imagane that the door bell transmits when it is pressed. But on downpowering the doorbell system all worked great. Can't remember what make the door bell system was. Anyway down power the door bell and start from factory options of the C-bus wireless wall plates.
If this proves to work it may be worth while phoning tech support and letting them know of the make and model of the door bell.