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🔌General Home Automation => Automating Your House => Topic started by: bkenobi on January 23, 2013, 10:41:59 PM

Title: Silly question
Post by: bkenobi on January 23, 2013, 10:41:59 PM
I have a couple lights out back that sometimes turn on at ~10%.  I only really want them on at 100%, but since these are controlled by WS467 switches locally, these sometimes get set lower with a double tap.  What I want to do is to have my AHP macro that turns on all lights in the back yard turn on at 100%.  For some reason, I can't remember how to accomplish this.  I'd appreciate if someone could refresh my memory!
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: Noam on January 24, 2013, 02:03:59 AM
If they can be dimmed at the switch, then they are newer, SoftStart ones.
Make sure they are defined that way (and you are using a new enough version of AHP that can do Extended Dim Codes), and set the brightness to 100% (absolute) in the macro.
That should do it.
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: bkenobi on January 24, 2013, 02:33:21 AM
Yes, soft start switches.  I'm using AHP 3.318 and everything works fine.  But, when I try to add the module to a macro, I can only set the brightness to 1-99%.  If I move the slider to 100%, the command switches to ON.  Same with 0% becoming OFF
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: Brian H on January 24, 2013, 06:30:32 AM
I am not an expert on AHP but in the Preferences Tab. Macro choice. There is a selection to issue a On in place of a Bright 100%.
That maybe why you are getting an On with your slider at 100%.
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: Noam on January 24, 2013, 10:47:16 AM
I am not an expert on AHP but in the Preferences Tab. Macro choice. There is a selection to issue a On in place of a Bright 100%.
That maybe why you are getting an On with your slider at 100%.
That's a good thought, Brian. I wonder if that is related to the following bug:


It never occurred to me to check (and/or change) that setting after I switched my older lamp modules to SoftStart ones. (I still do have a few Smarthome modules that might be defined as old ones - I'll have to check it when I get home.) It makes sense that an "On" sent to a SoftStart module would go to the last dim level, while a "Bright 100%" would go to the full brightness setting (with an Extended code). Can you test if that's what happens (that it indeed sends the correct Extended Code, instead of a "Percent Dim" command)?


Is the Activity Monitor showing an "Extended Code", or a "Percent Dim" when that light is turned on by the macro?
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: bkenobi on January 24, 2013, 12:40:23 PM
I'll have to check, but I don't recall seeing any extended commands in the monitor.  I thought I had the setting switched to send 100% bright though.  I'm fairly confident these are all set up as SS WS467 modules.
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: bkenobi on January 24, 2013, 10:03:03 PM
The macro I have set up is supposed to turn the lights on to the "ON" position.  I tried dropping the %on to ~50% and then back up.  The lights still turn on virtually off.  I then checked the activity monitor and it DOES display extended codes to turn the lights on to 0%.  I tried fiddling with the macro preferences to switch it to either "send on instead of 100% bright" or the other way.  Both resulted in the same operation.  I restarted the HA PC just in case, but that did not resolve the issue.

The thing I don't get is why this has just started happening.  I didn't change anything and now the same commands are performing differently on multiple switches.


SOOOO.....


After a bunch more fiddling, I think it's working.  I'm not sure what the last straw that fixed it was, but it is now sending bright 100% commands to my WS467 SS modules.  Funny that the inline fixture dimmer module doesn't do the same since it's a soft start, but that's X10 for you I guess.
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: bkenobi on January 25, 2013, 10:09:31 PM
And....it broke again.   B:(

Tonight I ran the same macro to turn on back yard lights and once again the lights are turning on dimmed.  The Activity Monitor is showing:

452  1/25/2013 6:41:34 PM  Macro  A2 Extended Code Bright/Dim 0% (BBQ Light)
453  1/25/2013 6:41:35 PM  Macro  A3 Extended Code Bright/Dim 0% (NW Spot Light)
454  1/25/2013 6:41:36 PM  Macro  A4 (Kennel Light)
455  1/25/2013 6:41:36 PM  Macro  A On (Kennel Light)
456  1/25/2013 6:41:36 PM  Macro  A5 (Shop Light)
457  1/25/2013 6:41:36 PM  Macro  A On (Shop Light)

In the preferences I currently have not checked the box for "Issue 'On' in place of 'Bright 100%'".  My installation has WS467 on A2, A3, and A5.  A2 and A3 are soft start.  A5 is old school.  A4 is an inline dimmable fixture module.

Is there a way to just send the extended code for 100% bright manually?  That's what I want anyway, so that would presumably fix the issue.
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: bkenobi on January 25, 2013, 11:04:07 PM
My next attempt is to just send extended codes for turning on the SS lights.  It appears to work ok so far (but I said that yesterday too).

A2 0x31 0x3F
A3 0x31 0x3F

This seems to successfully turn on those 2 modules immediately to 100% on.  In fact, I'm going to try using that with the inline module on A4 while I'm at it.  I'll crawl back if this fails.   rofl
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: bkenobi on January 25, 2013, 11:20:57 PM
 B:(

Strange things.  If I click on the macro icon to run the code from AHP, the activity monitor shows the code correctly executing.  HOWEVER, if I run the code via the text2x10 script, the lights turn on to 0% bright.

This is what my AutoHotKey script is recording:

text2x10 sent on macro
2013/01/25 20:09:31   RecvAction: RecvPlc, m4, On, , ,

AHP macro on M4:
2013/01/25 20:09:32   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a2, ExtCode, 49, 1,
2013/01/25 20:09:33   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a3, ExtCode, 49, 1,
2013/01/25 20:09:34   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a4, On, , ,
2013/01/25 20:09:35   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a5, On, , ,

manually click the off macro (M4):
2013/01/25 20:11:54   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a2, Off, , ,
2013/01/25 20:11:55   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a3, Off, , ,
2013/01/25 20:11:56   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a4, Off, , ,
2013/01/25 20:11:57   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a5, Off, , ,

manually click the on macro (M4):
2013/01/25 20:12:00   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a2, ExtCode, 49, 63,
2013/01/25 20:12:01   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a3, ExtCode, 49, 63,
2013/01/25 20:12:02   RecvAction: RecvPlc, a4, ExtCode, 49, 63,


I notice that for some reason running M4 on locally sends 63 data bit while running from the macro remotely sends 1 data bit.  WHY?!
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: bkenobi on January 25, 2013, 11:53:48 PM
Ok, I'm dumb  ;D

I forgot to upload the new macro to the CM15A.  As a result, the old code was running on the controller and the new code was running on the HA PC.  Now that I've uploaded the code it looks to work fine.
Title: Re: Silly question
Post by: HA Dave on January 26, 2013, 04:28:23 PM
Ok, I'm dumb  ;D
I forgot to upload the new macro to the CM15A.  As a result, the old code was running on the controller and the new code was running on the HA PC.  Now that I've uploaded the code it looks to work fine.

A common error. I've done the same myself.