Problems opening project

Hi all

I'm new to all this stuff as i have bought a house with an early genertaion C-BUS system installed. I want to move some switches around to create a two way switched lighting circuit as well as removing some lighting from the C-BUS system.
I have recently purhased an RS232 to USB adaptor from Dontronics as i have read that this is the only one that works reliably with the C-BUS system. The problem i am having is that i cannot open the project. When i do a system scan it cannot identify any project name and does not give me the option of openeing the file.
Is there some way that i can download the project onto my PC without doing a scan?. And will the new C-BUSToolkit software work with the old generation PCI?
As i said, this is all new to me, and any help would be appreciated.

 

Hi Donald,

Some very old PCI's are not supported.

Potentially what has happened is that Toolkit has recognised that a PCI can be seen, its then crossed over the PCI into the Network beyond in an attempt to find the name of the "project" on that Network. It failed to find a project name, thus the "Failed Identify" message. We're reworking this at the moment so that it offers to create a new project.. In the meantime.. you could:

Create a New Project in Toolkit by selecting "Add Project" from the Projects menu.. name your new project.. then when Toolkit offers to add a Network to this new Project answer "Yes" and create a Serial Network on COM1 (or whatever COM port your PCI is connected to). Once Toolkit has created this Network press the "Open Network" button.. hopefully you'll see the Network go to "Open".. then select the "Units" node on the Treeview and hit the Scan button in the bottom half of the screen.

 

Thanks Duncan

I did as you suggested and got the following results
When i open the network i get a message that says "ERROR-Failed to open". When i acknowledge this message, the tree view shows that the network is running, and that there are 5 applications.
I then click on the UNITS node and select SCAN NETWORK. After searching for 'Duplicate Units', i then get another error message saying that the network failed to open but the tree view still indicates that the network is running.
The toolkit version i am running is 1.1.6. Is this version too old perhaps?

 

Donald

I would definitely recommend moving to a newer version of Toolkit, version 1.4 is the latest. Don't forget to back-up your projects when Toolkit prompts you in the off chance that something doesn't quite work out.

Let us know how you go with Toolkit 1.4.

 

Thanks Newman

Will give this a try and let you know how it goes..

 

Hi guys,

Still got the same problem even though i am now running version 1.4.0.
The scan still results in an error message saying that the network failed to open even though the treeview indicates it as running.
Is there anything else i can try.
Thanks...

 

It sounds like a "Burden" problem. For a system to work, it requires 3 basic thing. C-Bus Power, C-Bus Clock, and Network Burden. Without first two, nothing would have worked. Without burden, the system may work but your software will not be able to see it.

With old PCI, I think there is a hardware burden on the unit and there is a jumper to set it on or off. But I have little experience with these early PCI so perhaps other member may give you a better advice.

In fact, for old system, I would rather download the old Version 2 Installation Software and use that for the first time, copy the network to a database and save it! I have cases that Toolkit erased/over-write some switch programming with scene (mainly NEO switch only). But you never know, so have a backup with old software is a good bet. In fact V2 software is ok if you want to do some minor changes.