Flashing RED LEDs when a key is pressed.

I am chasing down a fault with the C-Bus on my system. (Minder, C-Bus and X-10)
Occassionly when a key is pressed the LED will flash and the light wont turn on. If you try another switch, it will flash and its light wont turn on. This happens to all of the light switches.
To fix this problem, I turn off the C-Bus power supplies for 10 secs and switch them back on. The system will function correctly for another month or so.
I was initially chasing a faulty Switch, but now I suspect one of the power supplies.
Now when I get the flashing LED fault, I only turn off power supply 2. I leave the remaining two on. The easy fix is to replace the PSU (5100PS).

So my questions to the group are,
Has anyone else had problems with PSU's effecting the C-Bus control signal?
Has anyone tried to repair these units?

Regards,
Jolian

 

Jolian

Before I try and identify your problem can you answer a few important questions?

1. How old is the system
2. Do the key input units have red or orange LED's
3. What cable is being used to run the C-bus network on?

Given that you have mentioned that you have a 5100ps I would be guessing the system is a couple of years old meaning that all your devices would be the older C-Bus 1 products.

If this is the case then the cause of your problems may very but in most cases the flashing LED indicates that the C-bus clock is not present. This is only true if we are talking about Non C-Bus 2 devices.

Their are a few resolutions to this problem.

1. The network may not be properly burdened, over or under burdening can cause the same problems. How many units do you have? Do you have more than 1 network?

2. A Power supply may be faulty and creating noise on the network. However I would think that the problem would be more common if this was the case.

3. Older C-Bus systems only had a few devices that produced the clock pulse unfortunately I can not remember witch ones except for the following. 5100PC 5100NB and Minder or Home minder C-Bus interface devices. I am not certain about power supplies but I can look this up if needs be. If I was looking for a faulty device then I would focus on one of these.

4. The last possible cause I will leave out for now until you can rule out the above possibilities.

Please remember these are all possibilities that are more specifically related to the older 51xx model C-bus devices.

Hope this helps.

The problem can be solved that?s for sure.

Regards Merlin

 

C-BUS Fault

Check your voltage at the switches if this is OK scan the system and see if any devices have no descrptions. If this occurs click on that device a couple of times, it maybe that device if your unable to see the description completely. Power supplies have no clock but a shorting one can kill the system. The older switches have problems and are falling over if they are made around 1997. I think its a capacitor on the board. The buden is a problem if you don't have a way of testing, try adding the burden and see what happens over a few weeks.
Good Luck

Glenn Wollenweber
Capital Tech

 

Hi
I saw this problem in my CBUS 1 installation circa 1998. My network has a single clock the RS232 PC interface. I resolved my problem by adding an additional power supply to the network. This brought the network voltage up and the problem has not returned.

Paul

 

Faulty keypads

Thanks for your replies.
Because the fault would only occur once a month or so, it was hard to track down the source of the fault.
Until now,
Last week the system failed again and it could not be reset by switching the PSU's off and on again.
I disconnected each keypad in turn until the fault cleared. I then re-connected the remaining keypads and tested the system. All okay.
I re-connected the suspect keypad and the system failed (Red flashing LED when a key is pressed).
The keypad is marked with 1999 not 1997 (C7 fault). I have sent the suspect keypad to CIS for repair.
Regards,
Jolian

Merlin,
System installed in 1999.
The system is CBUS1. Red LEDs not Orange.
I have used security cable not CAT3 or 5.
I removed the burden during the fault condition with no effect. I was unable to increase the burden.

Capital Tech,
I checked the voltages at the switches. 36Vdc. The same voltage at the power supplies.
I tried scanning the network during the fault condition and the software did not detect any devices. Minder reports "C-Bus power supply failed".
I tried scanning during normal condition and all the nodes appeared to be okay. I could see the descriptions and I could make changes to each device.

Paulk,
I was about to purchase a CBUS2 PSU this week. I will wait until the suspect Keypad comes back from CIS.

 

I have a simular problem ..

my cbus system was installed in 1999 and was working fine until about 2 months ago, when things just stopped working. When you press a switch - the red LED flashes.

I reset the system (buy turning off the mains power to the power supplies), then one Saturday night about six weeks ago, that didn't fix it.

I added a new power supply (5500PS) and that seemed to fix the problem.

Then every few weeks, the system gets into a bad state for about half an hour.. None of the switches work (just flash at you), you can't change the state of the load (the lights that are already on stay on).

After about 30 minutes, everything returns to normal.

I'm guessing the system goes into low voltage, and the new power supply (5500PS) ramps up and provides enough voltage to cover the requirements.

I'm not sure what my next plan is .. my wife isn't too impressed (it's a light after all .. it should just work). I'm not sure that adding another power supply (especially a 5500PS) will make things any better..

Suggestions?

 

I wonder if this is how the power supply reacts to a brownout. I recently had one here and no lights worked, but the keyinputs did.

Next time it happens put a multimeter on the phase and check the voltage

 

Hi Metro,
As you have probably already read, my problem was a keypad. (Post the C7 known fault)
Since you system is the same vintage, I would suggest that you may have a faulty keypad.
When the system fails again disconnect the keypads one by one until the system operates correctly. Remember the last two keypads as one of these may be faulty.
The next time the system fails disconnect the keypads in the opposite direction. Hopefully disconnecting the first keypad will rectify the fault.

I discovered finding the faulty keypad took months. If your wife will let you, leave the keypads mounting screws loose so it will be easy to disconnect the keypads when the system fails again.
Good luck,
Jolian

 

I've found out from CIS that the old "white box" power supplies were a bad decision on Clipsal's behalf and have been replacing them on sites as they are iron core transformers and are common to over voltage the system I've measured upto 44.5volts, this is to be measured with no c-bus attachments just the transformer powered no load. The transformers now (5500PS) are a electronic unit that pretty much will add internal resistance to make the 36.5v required for the system (smarter technology). This has fixed many installations, however I have one now that I suspect a faulty switch or the Home Minder system is faulty. I am lead to believe it is either a factor of no system clock or there is a over burden effect or under burden effect, as mentioned earlier in the thread there is a issue with C-Bus 1 and system clocks, when you start to upgrade switches and other units to C-Bus2 you will possibly find a need for a system clock.

 

They haven't aged gracefully. As certain components deteriorate with age they can cause problems. Periodic bursts of junk on the network seem to be the most common failure mode.

A no-load test is not a fair test for many kinds of power supplies. A small load is often required to get a meaningful reading.

Not really how it works, but the 5500PS is a significantly better design.

If there is no system clock then none of the devices will be able to communicate with each other. If there are any DIN output units in the installation, the C-Bus indicator will be Off if there is no clock.
Most C-Bus networks (except bigger ones) require 1 network burden. C-Bus Toolkit or the C-Bus Calculator can advise you as to whether you need one or not.

Not strictly true. The first C-Bus units running firmware 1.00 will flash their indicators if they cannot successfully communicate. C-Bus2 units including the Learn Mode versions of the 2000 series and the early Neo's will not flash their indicators under the same condition. Either way, the devices can't communicate.

Any C-Bus network of any age MUST have a system clock to communicate. This has nothing to do with adding newer units to an existing network.