Dimming multiple GA's

It must be simple... One NEO button to dim up multiple GA's and another button to din them down (using a PAC). Any idea?...Thanks.

 

Depending upon how many groups you've got you can do this without the PAC. Assign one key as dimmer up and the other key as dimmer down. Then, on the Blocks Tab, tick the boxes that link those 2 keys to the other blocks in the unit. Then put the groups you want to dim up and down on the corresponding blocks.

 

In the past I have found that this does not work. I have had to change the groups that I wanted to dim to the same name. This unfortunately lost the ability for dimming only some of them from another key input.

Mick

 

Thanks Newman...This one I know...
The GA's (much more then 8) are not related directly to that NEO buttons. They are included in scenes stored in the PAC.
Any Idea?

 

Mick

Neos with firmware 1.4 had some issues with this however they have been all resolved under 1.6.

 

Any more ideas? Anyone?

Probably it's my limited experiance with PAC programming...I'm trying to find the right way to dim up/down about 16 GA's at the same time from 2 NEO buttons (Using a PAC)...tried allmost everything I can think of...no luck.
There must be a way to do it.

 

Your other alternative might be to Add an OR logic in your dimmer module, and Add a new GA to the 16 outputs and then set the 2 Neo buttons to control the new GA.

 

I don't think dimming multiple groups with logic is a good idea. One have to be clear what all the keys do. For example, a light is set at 50% using logic with a common GA, your other key with its own GA doesnot have free control anymore. Depending on which logic you use, either it can never go below 50% or above 50% with own GA, because the master GA is acting at the same time.

I think the best is "scene modify" with DLT. I don't know if that can be done with PAC directly though. Using Logic programming in PAC maybe more straight forward, trying to match all 16 GA level with a reference level, which is controlled by NEO. Hope some pogrammer can help you out.

 

In a word - IT CAN'T BE DONE.

In your situation it might be worth while trying Josh's solution using the "OR" logic in the dimmers and a bit of logic in the PAC to correctly control the NEO led's. Program the output channels logic with the same GA. I understand this might not be an appropriate solution but it's probably the only way of achieving a similar outcome.



You have the bigger problems when trying to dim across networks.

 

Not excatlly sure what the objectinve is here, but the following may be of interest:

In one C-Bus installation I was involved in, I wanted to be able to set lights in rooms throughout a floor of a building, and also be able to dim all lights to a common level (ones that were ON only). This was easy with the MAX logic in the dimmers and a separate group for dimming. The only catch here is that the dimmer group had to be at 100% when it was not in use, so that it didn't interfere with the other lights.

 

Thanks to all..

PSC: "IT CAN'T BE DONE" is our programmers wonderland, isn't it?

Josh: I'll go with your idea... (Sorry, but I've never used unit's logic before)

The project is a restaurant/bar with over 70 GA's.
The customer wants a NEO 8 to operate everything!
The NEO was designed by me as following:

Button 1: Home/Start
Sets up all GA's to a Scene based on time periods. There are 7 Scenes during 24h. Scenes are generated by PAC logic.

Button 2: Bar Area mood
4 Scenes, generated by loop counter in PAC.

Just to have control on some of the GA's inside the "Timed" scenes:
Buttons 3 & 4: Cold Cathode dim (12 GA's)
Buttons 5 & 6: "Shanti Zone" dim (10 GA's)

Button 7: Utility
Light scene for cleaning/utility

Button 8: Away
(Guess what this one is for...)

The GA's I want to control (dim) are spread all over... (different dimmer units/output ch.)
I'll assign a new GA (lets say: "Global Dim") to the relevant GA's in each dimmer unit logic using the Or/Max logic.
The NEO will have 2 dim function buttons (up & down) controlling the "Global Dim" GA. Is this corect? if it is, then it looks very simple...

And for the "perfect" solution (which might be more complicated):
Is there a way to keep the level ratio of those GA's while dimming (up or down)?

 

This is correct.

??? Not sure what you're trying to do here, but this might answer your question.

If you created a scene that sets Group 1 to 30% and Group 2 to 50%; and those GA's have the 'GLOBAL' GA assigned to them in the output unit logic

and

you have a 'dimmer up' and a 'dimmer down' button controlling the 'GLOBAL' GA; the 20% difference between Group 1 and Group 2 is NOT maintained.

The 'GLOBAL' logic always maintains the lowest dimming point (set by your scene) and dims up from there and only back down to that point and not beyond.

So in a nutshell, I hold my finger on the 'Dimmer up' function, Group 1 ramps up from it?s starting point of 30%, Group 2 does not ramp until the level gets to it's starting point of 50%. Once there they continue to ramp together until they reach 100% (or what ever the max level is set to in the output unit).

I hope that answers your question, although it probably doesn't provide you with a solution.

 

Thanks Peter,

I've eneded up by taking out those GA's from the general scene, put them on their on scene and using the NudgeScene command in PAC.

Didn't have any problem to dim multiple Crt's (GA's) on Lutron, Vantage or LiteTouch while keeping the level ratio between of them...
It's time to add that posibility to C-Bus list.

Thanks again.

 

The Scene Modify functionality in Neo and DLT will allow you to maintain the relationship between groups up until the point those groups reach the upper or lower limits of 100% or 1%.

Since you have 2 keys you can assign 1 button to recall the Scene and the other button as a Scene dimmer. The Scene dimmer key will then dim up and down all groups in the last set scene just like a regular 1-key dimmer. Groups that the Scene sets to off are not affected by the scene dimmer key.

 

Thanks Newman,
I believe that you refer to a scene build into the NEO. If it is, the scene is a bit limited...(No. of GA's). What I was loking for is a "RampUpScene" / "RampDownScene" / "RampOffScene" in PAC logic which will be very nice...Meanwhile I'm using the NudgeScene and it works fine...Thanks again.