What C-Touch’s are still available

Forgive me if this has been asked/answered alread but am I correct in saying that Clipsal no longer sell any C-Touch screens of any flavour except for the new Ethernet Touch Screen That talks to the SHAC?

Im looking to upgrade an old failing B&W C-Touch 1 and was wondering if I have any options.

Thanks in advance

Jason

 

Hi Jason,
I have a couple of 5080CTC2 units available for sale, they are refurbished units I purchased from the UK, they were originally used in the US market for about 1-2 years only and are in very good condition. If your interested send me an email and we can discuss.
P.S. The project in your B/W unit would need to be redone to use in the colour unit, they both use the same Piced S/W.
Arbor Australia originally designed and built the colour touch screens for Clipsal, and we still provide a repair service for them.

Best Regards and have a great day

Trevor Callaghan
Workshop Manager
Arbor Australia Pty Ltd
Eastern Business Centre
Unit 36, 41-49 Norcal Road, Nunawading VIC 3131, Australia
Phone +61 3 8736 0328
Mobile 0404 887 463
Email Address’s
[email protected]

 

Dear Trevor,

thank you for your reply. I will email you today.

Kind regards

Jason

 

Does Clipsal still sell these?

 

Thank you Nick,

so you are saying that I can still purchase a MkII B&W C-Touch from Clipsal?

If so that’s great. One of my original B&W C-Touch’s is not booting so it may be the easiest option. It’s in a masonry wall and cutting out a much bigger hole and sourcing a now-discontinued, probably second hand, colour c-touch with very limited/no warranty plus a power supply and wall box for something greater than $1.5k is unfortunately not a very attractive option financially. However, I would love a colour screen so I’m still thinking through that option (although my wife probably isn’t)

Is there any future possibility that a Colour touch screen that doesn’t require a SHAC/NAC do do it’s thing will still be sold in some form by Clipsal or has that ship already sailed...

Kind regards

Jason

 

Pascal controller maybe?

 

Surface go and wall box running schedule plus or homegate

 

Jason, if u go the B+W and I will send u my template so u can hit the ground running.

 

Thanks for the offer of the template. That’s very kind of you. I have two B&W Mk I screens (one is on the fritz - continuous reset loop) the other has been working solidly since 2003!

I was looking to replace the dodgy one, and was canvassing my options. I would prefer to move my logic from my old Wiser 1 unit as well. My current C-Touch project “maxes” out my screen memory!

I wanted to know if there was a Clipsal roadmap going forward for colour touch interfaces that didn’t require a SHAC/NAC. It appears the answer is B&W C-Touch MkII. I suggested to Nick the other day in another post that Colour eDLT’s would be a good option. Any seconders on that?

Thanks you for your reply.

Cheers

Jason

 

If ur maxing out the screen you NEED to start playing code golf and cut down your code length.

It does beat me why Clipsal hasn't gone to an all touch "t-DLT" if you will, the 3.2" screens are ubiquitous and cheap and combo with an arm chip could be a game changer, but the power supply issues would pop up as the backlight alone is 45ma at 5v

 

Thanks Chromus. I have been "putting" around the code to minimise memory usage. I already reduced the screens down to one font only to conserve memory. I can't complain though, this thing even runs an irrigation controller that I created in it without needing logic! I don't think I could put more functionality into it. So hats off to the Clipsal boys for that.

Re: the DLT screens. I agree, a colour "touch" DLT would be amazing, but as usual, its the age old engineering problem of aesthetics versus cost and other constraints such as network power draw, screen resolution, local processing power, on board memory, backward compatibility, etc. etc. Having said that, If I can run a B&W C-Touch Mk1 designed twenty years ago on the c-bus network, I'm sure with the new low power technology, they could come up with Colour Touch eDLTs.

Adafruit make 320x240 2.8" colour capacitive touch screens with built in controllers for less than $100 consumer price. This is the same resolution as my B&W C-Touch in a 1/4 of the form factor. Hope NickD is reading this

 

Hi Jason,
When you say built in controller, what are you referring to, a cbus controller?

 

Sorry Trevor,

all hypothetical as a c-bus product. By built in controller, I mean that the controller to address the screen is there as well as opposed to a screen that requires all of the support circuitry to be "built" by the user. There are lots of small form factor screens made for Arduino's and Raspberry Pi's. The one I was referring to was made by Ada Fruit. It includes a resistive or capacitive touch interface and the circuitry required to control the screen via an SPI interface bus or separate data lines. The in built circuitry means that the host processor doesn't need to do much work managing the screen and there are often software libraries pre-written for you to take all of the hard work out of the coding.

Apologies if you already know all of this...

Cheers

Jason

 

No Worries,
Since the demise of the old faithful colour touch their hasn't been an integrated solution that incorporates all the functionality required to make a decent system alternative - Colour touch, cbus I/f, Piced, compatible, ease to program, all in one box

 

Perhaps we should create a "Bring on the Colour Touch eDLT" forum...