Running out of Groups?? Need more?

Running out of Groups on Lighting? Need more Group Addresses?


As you may know C-Bus Toolkit allows you to create new Applications each of which can have up to 255 Group Addresses. But its important to note that some Application Addresses are Reserved... for backwards compatibility however Toolkit allow you to create Applications at almost any Address.

Future releases of Toolkit will nag you if you use a reserved application, so get into the habit now of using the right ones.


So what can you use safely? Here's a list of what Clipsal currently uses or has planned for Application Addresses:

25 Temperature Broadcast
38 Room Control System (Clipsal 5 Star)
48 - 94 Lighting
95 Dali Gateway Interface Default Application
112 Ventilation (dampers and fans)
113 Irrigation Control
114 Pool, spa, pond and fountain control
136 Heating (Clipsal 5 Star)
202 Trigger Control (Clipsal SceneMaster, IR Output)
203 Enable Control
205 Audio/Visual
206 Error Reporting
208 Security
209 Metering (gas, water, electricity, oil, etc)
223 Clock and Timekeeping
224 Telephony Status & Control
228 Measurement (light, liquid, temperature, etc)
255 C-Bus Network Management and Control

As you can see, there's 46 Application Addresses that are designated as "Lighting" between 48 and 94 (inclusive). You can safely use ANY of these addresses without fear that Clipsal will later allocate one of these to some form of specialised role on the Network. Stick to these Addresses.

The default lighting application is 56. If you need a few more, start from 57 and work up from there - its simple and easily recognisable.

The list above is not complete, we have roughly another 20 that we will reserve shortly for other functions that will be supported by future hardware. Once again, they will NOT be in the range 48-94.

 

groups

Duncan

suggestion
can toolkit be made to show the application text (room control etc) and insert when the new app is used and the addreess is selected ie 38.
Would save typing text in and also show the reserved ones.

dave

 

Toolkit will be enhanced as time goes along to natively name and support the above applications. One such enhancement will be automatic naming of the Applications.

 

More Dali Groups

Hi, as I am new to all this is I was wanting to know if this is the preferred way to add more Dali lines to an existing office floor layout as the groups in Dali are preset, 1 -064 (40) 2- 192 (co). The builder wants to install Dali on the rest of the floor and we will need to install a second gateway.
Darryl.

 

DALI Apps

Hi Wadarryl,

Using a second application is the right thing to do if you have to install a second Dali Gateway (PC_DAL2) as you have lots of loads, but don't forget a DALI Gateway can control 128 ballasts in total, so you may be able to get away with simply adding the extra ballasts to the existing network.

Just beware that if you are controlling the DALI loads with an older firmware version key unit, they can only control one application. Newer NEO/Saturn/DLT, C-Touch and Homegate/Schedule Plus allow you to control multiple applications.

The last thing to consider is the DALI Gateway has recently undergone an upgrade itself (PC_DAL2B). This lets you do nifty stuff like configure the mapping of C-Bus Groups to DALI events. Check out the user guide here: http://www2.clipsal.com/cis/technic...2/cbus_control_and_management_system/advanced

Cheers,
Mark.

 

More groups?

Thanks Mark I just needed more time to get my head arround the formats. Half the problems I had have been getting the ballasts to save their settings so I've not been thinking straight lately. The job I've been on has a mix of brands and not all like to interface with the software straight away. I prefer one head ache at a time.

Darryl