I have suddenly lost dimming on all my switches. Can anyone suggest what might I happened? Tonyo
Have a look at the phase that the dimmer modules use. You should have the same phase to the control (left) and power (right). If they are on different phases, the dimmer will just switch the light on and off. If the channels will not go off at all, you probably have a short on the CBus network cable.
Multiple dimmer modules stopped I actually have 5 dimmer modules and they have all stopped working. My lights can still be switched on and off just not dimmed.
Clarification These dimmers have been functioning for 3 years. I have not added new hardware but may have done something wrong in software, but I and not sure what.
If you have played in the software to have this occur, then it may be that you set the turn on minimum thresholds to 100%. Then the affected channels won't go below that level, unless they are turned off. If you haven't played in the software, I'd check that you haven't lost one of your power supplies. You may have to provide additional information as to how & when your problem first occurred so we can narrow down the possible cause. Regards Geoff
Lost When I have loaded down c-gate which I have not used before ( I have minder). I installed the software but the "tree" command only showed the first part of my network (I still haven't resolved this ). So I ran cbus install to get an up to date list of units/groups on my network. This gave unit conflicts and re-assigned units. I don't get unit conflicts any more. I went back to c-gate and use telnet to switched on and off one of the lights that was showing . Then I tried to ramp the light. It didn't dim but now none of my switches will dim Is there a master reset of some sort? Tony
Maybe the Key functions have been changed to on/off? It might just be something as simple as the key functions being changed to On/Off from Dimmer. One way for this to happen is to take part in a learn operation and then terminate on a relay - this gives all the keys an On/Off key function. Have you checked what the GUI says?
Someone may correct me, but there is a stated tolerance for fluctuations in the incoming power, and if a change greater than the tolerance occurs it states that dimming will not function and control will revert to on/off. The 'simple' fix is to cycle power on the modules.
Tony The dimmers from a few years ago reverted to On/Off mode if they detected that the mains was really poor. To get them back to normal all that is required is to turn the power off for a few seconds to the units and then back on again, as you found out. The intent here was to allow the loads to be controlled when the mains quality was too poor to detect the zero-crossing of the mains cycle accurately for dimming. It the unit can't tell when the zero crossing occurs it can't determine at what point in the half-cycle to fire the Triacs or SCR's (depending upon product). If this on/off mode wasn't implemented the result would be that the loads flicker/flash to full brightness as the dimmer loses control of the load. This was a characteristic of the early C-Bus dimmers. The current DIN/PRO dimmers circuitry and firmware has been refined several times over the years and is now very immune to crap on the mains. I'm not even sure that they revert to On/Off mode at all, I think they just wait for the mains quality to improve again before allowing dimming. Sources of noise on the mains can be heavy machinery, data on the mains for controlling street lighting/hot water services, lightning strikes etc.
