8 channel dimmer playing up

Ok - I am not thinking straight... its xmas... Im trying to move into the house with the cbus installed - I still have pressied to buy, removalists will be arriving tomorrow - arrghhh there is just too much going on...

My Cbus installation was working fine last week - it has 5 * 8 ch dimmers / 3 * 8 ch relays and around 40 odd switches of various types etc.

I had it all programmed with just simple on/off to start with..

Tonight I noticed the second 8 ch dimmer does not have the lower led lit - the cbus indicator light.

I can turn on any of the channels manually at the unit - and the channels work.

Toolkit is having difficulty scanning it - sometimes successful, other time not - once I even got the whole network but no serial numbers for the devices....

Now I swear I have not changed anything in the programming side, well I have since the problem - there was and still is only 1 clock and 1 software burdon (its on the mkII bw screen).


The manual for the dimmer indicates that if this indicator is not on, then it is because there is no power to the unit, or no clock. Well the 8 ch dimmer plugged in before it, has the indicator working correctly, and the one straight after it the same - so I assume the clock is working and is passing through this unit so others further downstream are receiving it and not complaining.

Argghhh... The unit appears to have power to it - ideas ?

While you read this, I will be hoping into the car, driving to the house, and run the diagnostics tools to see if this enlightens me... But I am seriously wondering if the device is at fault ?

Clues please - cause my head is hurting!

 

Diagnostics has told me nothing - in my coma sleep deprived state.....

I reset every unit on the network and ensured there was only 1 clock and burden....

Still not working - cannot even scan the dimmer into the toolkit.

Almost everything down stream has no serial # - some items are showing only 5v and not 30+v so it looks like a good sleep and pull some cabling apart to find out if something is broken or shorted out.

Think there is 2 problems the 5v downstream is being caused by something else - because if I isolate those items of the network the dimmer is still playing up!

Fingers crossed

 

Thanks - no probs highlighting the basics... as I said I am very tired and can not think straight - so wanting the basics told to me in case I forgot something...

Well after stuffing around and checking wiring etc.... last night and this morning - I have tried to make it as simple as possible.

PC connected to USB Interface connected to offending dimmer unit. No switches - Nothing else !!!!

At first I was able to scan it, and reset it, thought I was on a winner.. but after a few minutes the problems started again - even in this basic configuration.

The cbus indicator stays on most fo the time and flickers off for a second every 3-4 seconds or 10 seconds - so its not like it is flashing on/ off - it just drops out occassionally for awhile.

All the dimming loads still work in overide mode, except for one.... channel 3 - hmmm....

If I increase my network to the other 2 dimmers and relays - sometimes I scan the lot, sometimes I dont, when the offending dimmer plays up, I loose voltage to other units, and get errors. If this offending unit is only just tuened on - it appears to work for maybe 5 mins... (sometimes)

thats why I went with the basic of basic network - and there appears to be a problem with that.


I am just going to pull it out and replace it - I think.

 

Well just as I was about to pull it out I noticed a neutral wire appearing to go to the wrong terminating bus. So I moved it to where I thought it should go, applied power and the unit has been working flawlessly since.

Bloody sparky stuffed up on me I reckon !!

Moved into the house and enjoying the comforts and the nightly programming treat. Just a few programming things to sort out but that's for another post

 

Good to hear you got it sorted. The need for the dimmers to have the dimmer end of the unit and the power supply end of the unit connected to the same phase has been well covered, but all that goes out the window when the neutral isn't there!

 

I knew that - but because I aint a qualified electrician - just an electronics and computer nut - the install was off-loaded to my sparky....

I ended up with the apprentice doing his first cbus install (he had done the training courses at least!) - Im showing him how I wanted things done, nice and neat, he read all the cbus manuals again and again... The first dimmer took over 2.5 hours to install and wire up - and I am just looking at my watch thinking hmmm.... there are another 5 dimmer units and 3 relays to go - guess it aint going to be finished today...

Well it wasn't finished that day, I got it done, got it done by a qualified sparky so I get my paperwork. The job was neat, it was done to my satisfaction - so one glitch on a neutral I suppose was not too bad.

Could have I done it - yep. Would there have been as many mistakes - who knows ? But I do know when I need the licenced person to do the odd job to ensure that there is no future issues on anything legality.

Would I use him again - probably - we all have to start somewhere, and yes the company was a friend of a friend - so I got a good price, they got some experience and we are all happy. Mind you they somehow won a contract for a huge cbus installation - best of luck to them on that...

Horses for courses, and some of you may say I should have used a more experienced company - but hey it was a budget issue. If clipsal lowered there prices, more people would use it, those with experience would not charge the higher prices etc. I was originally quoted over $20k for my cbus install - I did the whole house for under $5k - including price for hardware and licensed electrician. I watched ebay daily and over 18 months I got all my equipment well under trade / cost price.

So I am exceptionally happy. I luve it. Now I gotta think about a wiser interface, since the house is completely running on media center and home servers for all its tv operations.... The joys of it all !