Close all blinds with C-touch B&W mk2

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by UK Household Automation, Jan 27, 2009.

  1. UK Household Automation

    UK Household Automation

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    Can anyone advise me on how to achieve a single 'all blinds close/all blinds open' button for the C-touch B&W mk2? We have a setup which includes over 40 shutter relays and can get to a point where they will all operate together on one button by setting up a Shutter toggle scene within the network, but if we want them all to actually 'close'...any that are already closed will open, and if we want them all to actually 'open' any that are already open will close. So; we need to send the specific 'close' and 'open' values to all the blinds using only one button (rather than simply the 'operate-stop-reverse-stop' facility that the shutter toggle option provides)
    CAN YOU HELP?
     
    UK Household Automation, Jan 27, 2009
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  2. UK Household Automation

    NickD Moderator

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    Easy... to fully close.. just set the group address to OFF, and to fully open, set it to ON.

    You can do all of them at once in a scene.

    The shutter relay GUI is a little misleading... the check box that enables "Level Translation" mode shows the alternative is "Proportional Mode"... implying that the proportional operation is not active in Level Translation mode... in actual fact teh shutter relay always has proportional mode active... it's just the "Level Translation" mode that you can turn on or off. The GUI is being updated to clarify this.

    Nick
     
    NickD, Jan 27, 2009
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  3. UK Household Automation

    UK Household Automation

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    Thanks for that,
    We'll try it, although I think we will need to cycle through the 1% (close), 2% (stop), and 99% (open) instruction values for the relays using a bit of logic code as we'd like to use one button only.

    Ta,

    JP
     
    UK Household Automation, Jan 28, 2009
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  4. UK Household Automation

    ashleigh Moderator

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    You should not need to do any of that clever dickery with logic.

    The shutter relay is your friend for this.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 12, 2009
    ashleigh, Jan 28, 2009
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  5. UK Household Automation

    NickD Moderator

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    As ashleigh said... there's no need to do anything fancy like that.

    Those special values in the shutter relay are just that.... special cases that allow you to do the magic one/two/three button control from a normal key unit.

    The shutter relay still responds to normal lighting commands.. for example if you tell it to go to a level of 75%...

    - if it's currently fully open, it will activate the "close" contact for 25% of the failsafe time
    - if it's currently fully closed, it will activate the "open" contact for 75% of the failsafe time
    - if it's currently at 10%, it will activate the "open" contact for 65% of the failsafe time

    This does rely on you setting the failsafe time as close as possible to the actual time it takes the blind to traverse from fully open to fully closed.

    In your case, to have a single button on the CTouch that's "all open" or "all closed"... you would set it as an on/off key, and create a scene with all the blind groups in it... this will turn all the groups in the scene on or off.

    Note that you can't do this with a single button on a key unit as scene keys on key units don't presently toggle scenes on or off (you could use a scene key and a scene toggle key, but then you have 2 keys so you might as well just make them on and off scenes).

    Nick
     
    NickD, Jan 28, 2009
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  6. UK Household Automation

    smeebag

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    On a key unit . .

    Could u not use a single key to select between 2 scenes - "blinds open" & "blnds closed" using a trigger control group?
     
    smeebag, Jan 30, 2009
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  7. UK Household Automation

    UK Household Automation

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    Thank you Nick D for your help, (Ashleigh and Smeebag too of course,) The 75% thing makes sense (as you explain it well) but clarification of the clients requirements has complicated things a little (I think).

    Our situation is this...

    We have installed electric blinds and roof vents in a large property but another company has installed the lighting and key input units (Saturn & Saturn DLT). Both installations are separate C-Bus networks linked by a Network bridge. We have been allocated only one button per window plus one for 'All blinds' on the key input units in each room, many rooms have more than one window, and many of the windows are huge folding door sort of things and have two or three blinds on each one. We are required to provide an OPEN-STOP-CLOSE-STOP function for each window (so that they can be partially closed) on a single button in the room if at all possible - whether they be single blind windows or multiple blind windows.

    Each floor should be able to be closed/opened as a whole from another button (or buttons) somewhere convenient, and at the C-Touch. (No need for the STOP function here in my opinion.)
    And the WHOLE HOUSE also should be able to be closed/opened from a convenient button and at the C-Touch. (Again, no need for the STOP function here in my opinion.)

    BUT.......
    We want to CLOSE all the blinds and roof vents as one when leaving the house but only open the BLINDS as one when returning (as we are in England, and it'll probably be raining so we won't want the roof vents to open.)

    The C-Touch isn't such an issue as we can generate two buttons, each with a single function (I was just hoping to be clever and generate only one,) but the DLTs are not so easy.

    What do you folks reckon?

    JP
     
    UK Household Automation, Feb 11, 2009
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  8. UK Household Automation

    ashleigh Moderator

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    Each room... => Use groups

    Roof vents => more groups

    Then for the different levels of overall control, use scenes living in a touchscreen. Remote trigger those scenes from key units where you need to.

    Then make bigger scenes (scenes of scenes) to do things like open all blinds, open all vents, close all blinds, close all vents.

    And then anopther super-scene (of scenes of scenes) to do things like "close everything" and "open bllinds but not vents" and so on.

    in other words - build it up out of liddle bits.
     
    ashleigh, Feb 11, 2009
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  9. UK Household Automation

    NickD Moderator

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    Another thing to be aware of...

    If your shutter relays are on a different network to the key units which are controlling the shutter relay group addresses... the indicators on the key units will not update correctly..

    The shutter control key functions on the key units will normally have the indicator ON if the blind is at any position other than fully closed.

    This does however rely on the indicator being "corrected" on the key unit by the regular status update on C-Bus.

    For example... the "Shutter Toggle" key function just sets the group level to 98% with every press, which would normally leave the indicator ON... when the shutter relay in "Level Translation" mode interprets this as "Close", it starts reporting its position as 0% in the status report, and the key unit updates itself (and hence its indicator) to OFF, and everyone is happy.

    Status updates don't go across network bridges though, so this process falls over if the key unit and shutter relay are on different networks. The control of the blinds will still work just fine, it's just the indicators will not always indicate the correct state.

    If this concerns you... you will either have to put them all on the same network, or set the indicators to always on or always off.

    Nick
     
    NickD, Feb 12, 2009
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