few questions about how to program numerous groups scenario

I apologize in advance for possible obvious questions but I searched out forums and did'n get answer, so if there exist tech paper or manual I will be glad to read it - just point me on it.

I'm programming a whole house lighting control with c-bus, system spec:

4 12-channels relay modules
2 4-channels dimmer modules
7 DLT keypads
about 30 4-buttons saturn keypads
PC RS-232 interface as well.

Problem - keypad modules is not able to handle scenario like "all off" because maximum amount of light groups that could be included in scenario is only 40. In my case I should turn off about 56 groups.

I divide house on few zones - like 1 floor, 2 floor - in this case I can use Trigger on/off, but it works somehow strange - I can use only 1 trigger button per keypad and I can't put a custom DLT label on this action on DLT keypad.

Also next strange point - If I program room within same floor - I use 1 trigger group but different actions - and activating any of these actions causes to trigger the whole group - looks like - 2 children rooms on the floor, 2 different buttons on different keypads, each button switches off all groups in each room. But status LEDs under those buttons work not obvious - like if I turn off boy's room - scene "Boy's room off" is ON and LED under that button also goes ON, after that I push button on next keypad, corresponding to "Girl's room OFF" - and LED under this button goes ON, but previous LED turns OFF. How usually this situation solves?

I'm sorry again, looks like I just can't make a obvious thing, and I'm sure that underwritten problems could be solved easily - just point me in right direction, please.

Oleg

 

For information about scenes, read this post

If this does not answer your questions, let us know.

Just put half of the scene in a different unit and use the same trigger group and action selector in both units. This way, both halves of the scene will occur together.

 

I read that topic and some questions remain. There was described a recommendation to use separate trigger group per each unit - to be sure that indicators on this unit will work correctly. But how I can manage situation when I have more then one keypad in one zone? One inside the room and one outside, and I have to operate with them not only scenes within this room? Ok, I can use external keypad's trigger but this trigger will break up indicators on another panels. A little bit messy. Well, I try to do it more precisely today anyway.

And a one more question - why I cant put a label on a DLT panel' button when I put a trigger action on this button? It just do not storing.

 

If you have more than one DLT for a room, then use the same trigger remote, that way your indicators should be in sync when the scene is on/off.

For DLT Labels, just create an action selector for the DLT, this will allow you to name the button when a scene is used.

 

small update

Actually I did almost all things I wanted to do, so I hope my client will be happy with clipsal, but as russians usually say in such cases - "Spoons were found, but memory remains".

So, just trying to figure out what was wrong with me or with clipsal hardware.

Firs of all - scenes. I had to create a scene "All Off" which should be activated when owner leaves house and nobody stays there. Total amount of lighting groups - 56, so it wasn't possible to put all of them into one keypad's scene. I created a Trigger Group "All Off", and separated 56 groups between 2 keypads on 2 scenes and put them on "Virtual key". Both scenes was rewarded same action trigger "House off". On one of these keypads I created a trigger key which activated action trigger "House off". Detailed procedure (saturn keypad) - I set secondary application "Trigger", clicked on "P" on left, it converted to "S", set Group to "All Off", set Function to Trigger 1 and choose action trigger "House Off". That was uploaded and worked great. After that I tried to repeat absolutely the same at second keypad. It didn't work. So - WHY? Different action (toggle light group on same button worked fine). Well, I used after that Trigger 2 instead of Trigger 1 - same result. No response at all.

Second point which put me in confusion - when I assigned traditional scene on a button - I wasn't able to put a Long Press action to call it. It shoud be very common - calling a scene not just as sudden press, so WHY? Or HOW it could be done?

 

And one last (i guess) question - client just reported me about some sudden actions - some groups suddenly turns on. What could do that?

 

Whenever events occur on a C-Bus system that you don't understand, the first thing to do is connect the C-Bus Diagnostic utility to a PCI on the network and log the network traffic. Make sure time stamps are turned on.

When the client reports that something unexpected has happened at a particular time you can then look through the log to see which C-Bus unit generated this message. This will help you to track down the problem and usually reveals a programming issue.