C-Bus PIR's not turning lights off every time.

Has anyone had issues with internal PIR's not turning lights off all the time? To all the PIR's in the installation can sometimes (1 out of 5 times) stay on. The light in them just stays red (not flashing). To turn the the lights off you walk up to the PIR, then walk away and sometimes the light will turn off. This is only a recent problem. The network was fine for over 1 year.

Is it a setting I have made? I have attached the PIR setup screens. Any help would be appreciated as its a pain to keep walking upto the PIR's to reset them.

 

Jason

2 Things to try:

1. Reduce the Long Press time from 400ms down to 122ms or thereabouts (just longer than the 96ms short press time)
2. Change the Long Release key microfunction for the DA (Dark + Movement) function from "Idle" to "Retrigger Timer".

Let us know how you go.

 

PIR issue

Thanks for the fast reply but the problem still occurs. If the PIR light stays red (not blinking) after you are out of range the lights stay on.

 

The way you have your PIRs set, the timer should be active when the loads are on (blinking LED). The only way that the timer can be made inactive while the load is still on, is if another KEY, PIR or other unit like a PAC, C-Touch, etc. shares the same group address, and issues a command to turn the load on (or keep it on).

If the other unit is a PIR, its LED should be blinking (if it was set up the same way as this one), until the load is switched off.

Is this possible in your network?

Don

 

Thanks for the reply Don. Yes a C-touch screen and a key input switch in some cases has control of these lights as well. But they are all in the off position. Is this a bad thing to have a PIR controlling an output as well; as a key input?

What baffles me if this is the problem is that walking up and away from the PIR can result in the light going off. It sort of resets the PIR. This is happening at all 6 PIR's in the installation. I must be doing something wrong?

Please note, the PIR's did not always do this, unfortunately I cannot think of the cause.

 

If something had worked for a year but now, it can't be programming issue, can it?

My past experience with the PIR is that you really need to run the diagnosis software or other programs that can trace the C-Bus commands sent over the network. Test the PIR (one by one if you have many) and see if it behave the same under the same conditions by looking at what the PIR sent over the C-Bus network. Sometimes it is just the sensitivity key, sometimes it is the faulty sensor, sometimes it is the dirty cover. Hopefully you can find out when it is still under warranty

 

This is not an answer as such but I am curious as to what you are trying to acheive? What is it that you want the internal PIR LED to indicate?

Most people would either disable the LED so it didn't annoy people or set it to follow the security function so that it will light only when that PIR senses movement.

Maybe you are trying to be to complex.

 

Thanks for the reply Ashley, however I'm only trying to get thye light (load) to turn on and off. I am explaining the status of the LED for info only. The basic function of the PIR, to turn lights on AND OFF is the problem. They do not turn off all the time.

 

Made some changes but still no luck

Please find attached the settings that still allow the PIR to remain on sometimes. I removed the logic on the relay and this did not fix the issue.

The traffic report did not show any major issues

 

Jason

While this is probably not related to your problem I can make a few observations.

1) Download and use Toolkit 1.2. It has numerous bug fixes and enhancements over Toolkit 1.1.6

2) The MMI interval on App 2 seems too short at 1 second. Open up the UI for your SENLL at address 60 and set the MMI interval back to 3 seconds. A 1-second MMI interval is just wasting bandwidth.

 

The important bit...

Jason

The note above is the important clue. From what you have said it sounds like the LED indicator setting in the PIR is default (State/Time). If the led is flashing it is indicating the timer in the PIR is running. In this situation you can take it that this PIR turned the group on and it's timer is running. If the led is on steady then something else has turned the group on.

There is one other variation of this, if the PIR turns the group on (therfore led = flashing) if some other unit is able to arbitrarily send a command on the bus for the same group address in the PIR to be on again, this message will cancel the timer in the PIR (led will go steady on). Because the timer in the PIR has been cancelled there is no "Off" command on the expiration of the timer because the timer is no more.

The first question is (as Don mentioned) do you have other units that can interact with the same group that is programmed in the PIR's.
Possible scenario. The PIR brings on group "x" and will run it's timer. Group "x" is actually a dimmed load and you have a key input button programmed with the same group ("x"). If you dim the load (group) after the PIR has turned the load on the PIR timer will be cancelled and you will have turn the load off manually.

There are a few more scenarios which can cause PIR timers to cancel including a scene being triggered or even an MMI discrepancy being fixed ??? but let's start with the scenario above...

 

Fixed the problem

The changes to the network file did not help, BUT I disconnected the C-Touch and all was fine. I therefore delved into C-Touch. The C-bus Control option of ?Ramp Groups to Level 1 then send Off? was ticked. This was causing the problem! Un-ticking it fixed the PIR problem!