Question regarding a macro starting, but not finishing

[Scott_Geeks]

Good afternoon,

This is my first time posting and hope someone may have an answer for me...

I have a macro created to do the following:

A1 "on"
Dim by 95%
Delay 2 minutes
Brighten by 3%
Delay 2 minutes
Brighten by 3%
Delay 2 minutes
Brighten by 3%
...and so on...
Delay 1 hour
A1 "off"

This is set on a schedule to start at 6:00am to mimic sunrise.  The problem I am running into is sometimes (1/2 the time so far) it will get to step 1 and stop...the lights will turn on to 100% and just sit there and never turn off.

Any ideas as to what may be causing it?? 

Another question is...when adjusting the bright/dim, is it possible to set the percentage manually??  or must I use the slider...and if that is the case, why are a bunch of values not there??  I spent way too much time trying to get 2% before I realized that it would just jump from 1% to 3%...no matter how carefully my mouse movement was.

Thank you for your time and hope someone has an answer for me.

Scott

[Puck]

Try changing your first 2 commands to a single command for setting an Absolute Brightness level of 5%.

Then make sure the rest of your Brighten commands are relative.

is it possible to set the percentage manually??

I don't think so, not from the UI anyways.

I don't know if you will even see a 3% difference in brightness. I don't know what light module you are using, but I don't believe X-10 ones have that good of a resolution.

[Scott_Geeks]

Thanks for the quick repy.

I will give the absolute value a try, but that still does't help with the original problem.  Why will it work 1/2 the time and not the other 1/2.  Is there any form of advanced error logging available that might tell me where the problem resides??  That would allow me to possibly correct the problem instead of just guessing my way through things.

As far as the % goes, I understand I will not see a difference between 2% and 3%, but that isn't really the point...why have a sliding scale that will give such odd values??  It's not like there is even a pattern to it.  I could understand if it went up by 2's or 3's or 5's, but it seems to be totally random as far as what you have to choose from.  And why not have the ability to set the value manually??  **just my thoughts**

Scott

//I am using the LM465 dimmable lamp module

[KDR]

You may have a noise problem? Is there something else turning on at the same time? something starting up like a frig or furnace motor? Kids turning on a game cube or another computer? Any of these can cause noise and drown out the PLC signal.

[Puck]

Dimming from OFF with absolute or relative ends up with the same result, but AHP sees things differently, and that could be the problem.

Here is a quick test I did a couple days ago: Re: Odd problems

It seems everyday a new quirk... I mean free built-in feature... is discovered in AHP. 

If the Absolute trick doesn't work, then as KDR suggested, you may have a noise problem.

Good Luck

[KDR]

It seems everyday a new quirk... I mean free built-in feature... is discovered in AHP.

Now thats rich... Its kinda like their 3 images in their ads, which ones diffrent? Makes me want to go looking for another Free Built-in Feature.

I have a couple of macros that dim and use the absolute %. As I mentioned before it seems that if I didn't issue an ON command first the light would come on sometimes and dim and sometimes just on. As soon as I get some free time I will have to play with it again.

[TakeTheActive]

...Is there any form of advanced error logging available that might tell me where the problem resides??

I don't know about "advanced", but what does your Activity Monitor say?

[Charles Sullivan]

Another question is...when adjusting the bright/dim, is it possible to set the percentage manually??  or must I use the slider...and if that is the case, why are a bunch of values not there??  I spent way too much time trying to get 2% before I realized that it would just jump from 1% to 3%...no matter how carefully my mouse movement was.

The number of regular Dim steps supported by a lamp module is less than 100.    The slider displays the percentage corresponding to the closest step.  I suppose X-10 could program the slider to display a continuous range 0-100%, but the same closest step would still be transmitted.  (At least AHP is honest about what it's doing, which isn't always the case.)

I agree that fiddling with the slider is a royal PITA and the ability to type in a value would be a big time saver.