Rotary dimmer switches

No. When you long press a switch the switch issues a ramp to either 0% or 100% over the specified ramp rate. The output unit starts ramping. The switch then tracks the output value internally. When you release the button, the switch issues an instantaneous ramp to it's internally tracked value. In this way all units get to see the final value. This is why you will occasionally see a slight change in brightness when you release the button (particularly on wireless networks), because if there is a slight delay in the output unit receiving the final level, it may already have moved past it and will then set it back again.

 

We do seem to have hijacked your thread. Sorry about that

Anyway, there a 2 types of 0/1-10v dimmers. Active ones output a 0-10V DC signal proportional to the position of the knob. Passive ones take 10V from the dimmer (generally a ballast) and return a 1-10V signal (since fluro's can only go down to about 10% reliably). From the docs it looks like yours is a passive one. When you put the 5504GI into resistance mode it will put some sort of voltage on the output to allow it to calculate the external resistance (there is lots of ways to do this and I don't know what method the 5504GI uses) but it's probably not 10V. Without knowing exactly what the switch is doing (it may or may not be just a pot) it's hard to advise what to try. You could supply your own 10V source but that would be a bit of a pain. It might be worth a test though just to see what happens. If you can get a suitable range of rotation you can then just create a custom curve in the 5504GI to get the appropriate response. A curve should also allow you to turn the output down to 0% without the need of a switch.

Personally I would just get 0-10V active dimmers and put the 5504GI in voltage mode.

 

@Ashley
Just for interest.
I was watching the logs while operating a slider in Piced.
It seems to send about 3 levels per second, ramp time 0 while moving the slider.

Code:

#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 252 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=30
#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 175 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=31
#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 4 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=33
#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 23 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=34
#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 52 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=35
#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 77 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=36
#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 113 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=37
#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 156 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=38
#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 196 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=39
#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 231 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=40
#s# lighting ramp //OFFICE/254/56/14 252 0 #sourceunit=202 OID=7bfbb550-b605-1035-a3c0-e435cd3cef8b sessionId=cmd31 commandId=41

 

That's just for a slider. It really has no choice but to continuously send set to level commands as it's an absolute positioning device. Buttons however do only send out one command when you press them and another when you release them.

But a slider would certainly give you a good idea about how dimming via a rotary control would work.

 

Just chucking in my 2 cents..

Does the client want dimming of those circuits from anywhere else cbus connected? Ie, from scenes or schedules? Or would on/off suffice?

I havent done it with dimmers but have indeed done it with fan mechs in the past, cbus relay output to fan mech (or dimmer) to load. Then a cbus mech (appropriately segregated) as the on/off of the load and the local dimmer does the rest..

Not sure if that would suit your client but maybe? And saves reinventing the wheel..

 

@Roosta
How could it not be so obvious?
For analogue dimming control I think that's a great idea to implement a dimmer mech after a relay.
It still doesn't address any remote control options but neither does using anything other than an unavailable encoder type device.

 

I do need control from elsewhere via C-Bus (via a head-end computer in this case).

I have made some progress with this using the 1-10V dimmer switch in conjunction with the 5504GI.

What I currently have is a voltage divider across the 24v output from the 5504GI (currently 6k8/4k7 because those were the resistors I had to hand; this is giving me 9.81v across the 4k7). The voltage divider will draw ~2mA , well within range for the 24v supply.

I connect 0v to A, and the 9.81v to the input channel (1 in this case), with the channel set to 0-10v, and sure enough I see 98% on the input as reported by TK.

I then connect the 1-10v dimmer switch across the input (in parallel), and this allows me to ramp down to 1.2v and back up to 9.8v (ie 12% -> 98% reported by TK).

(Actually the dimmer switch also has a push on/off option intended to control the mains supply to the lamps, and I've wired the input through that so I also have on/off at the switch as well.)

Apart from picking better resistor values to get closer to 10v, this is basically working correctly now.

So: Is there a good reason why I shouldn't be doing it this way? (I only have a single 1-10v switch for testing, I need to get some more to confirm operation with all four channels in use but I wanted some feedback from here first.)

PS: If anyone is tempted to copy, you do so at your own risk!

 

@more-solutions
Sounds good.
Could you send a link to the dimmer switch specs?
Does it all work pretty smoothly while operating?

I was watching my CBus slider operation and it sends levels in real time.
About 3 per second and I reckon your input unit will deal with that in a friendly way regarding CBus traffic.

How you end up dealing with remote level changes I'm interested to hear.
Maybe it is not a huge issue because the analogue input will only transmit when it operates?

 

The model is Aurora AU-DSPLED:
http://auroralighting.com/gb/ProductDetail/AU-DSPLED

I'm hoping that any rotary 1-10v dimmer input would work the same though (the cheap plastic thing I have now isn't something they'd use on site.)

It does with my tests so far, which use an incandescent candle lamp wired to an old 8-channel DIN rail dimmer and a 100ms sample time in the 5504GI settings. How well it will work with dimmable LEDs through a newer dimmer module I'm less sure though (any stepping between levels may be more obvious then).

That is roughly the traffic we're seeing here too, although I haven't analysed it in detail.

Not solved that one yet, but one option would be to run the input through a relay so that we can force it to zero, then use logic in the dimmer to take the maximum of our remote level or the local one. Otherwise we may have to run it through a PAC and suffer the latency, which hopefully won't be too bad. We do have a requirement to be able to disable the local switch though. Obviously the switch will itself always give its current position, ie we can't force the switch to a new value remotely as we could a C-Bus input. That may or may not be seen as an advantage.

 

I figured you might use the push button function with something like a bus coupler?
Yeah I think it could be pretty cool but it's a lot of work

 

Sorry I missed that you are using the CBus GI unit for switching too.
Re remote operation
When you set a level remotely
As long as the GI unit doesn't send any commands maybe that can work OK?

 

I think I agree with that last statement!

We're at the point where we can demonstrate something and highlight all the pitfalls. I suspect we'll end up either with a rotary centre-off switch that gives us separate up/down inputs, or a DLT, when we present the options to them. But testing the 5504GI has at least shown we can do what they want(ed).

 

Is there any way you can log a product request with CIS?
Obviously there's a market for a rotary style dimmer, I dare say Mark isn't the first one to have a client ask for such a device - I've been asked a number of times in the past, especially by the older set. Clipsal already make something similar in the DALI range

 

@Mr Mark
Hi Mark
Do you know how that DALI dial works with remote level changes?

 

Unfortunately no, as I've not used one yet.
I may have a chance to install some at work in the new year though. If I do, I'll definitely post the results.

 

Could you use the DALI rotary switch with DALI fittings and interface to cbus through the Cbus-DALI gateway?