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MrGibbage
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| Posted: June 30 2007 at 13:19 | IP Logged
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I have a KPL set up in my kitchen that is not connected to a load. I did this so that I wouldn't have to worry about the bug where you can't set up any different light levels for the directly connected load. So, I have buttons one and eight controlling a group of three lights, and it works great. The problem is, sometimes I will turn off those three lights with another switch (or PLC). I would like the KPL to show "OFF" at that point, so I tried including the KPL as a responder in a group in my PLC. When you do this in PH, you have to include a button number, so I tried "1". When I turned off the group, it seemingly turned off the PLC. And I mean, turned off. It looked like the PLC had lost power. No buttons works at all, and I had to pull out the little ding-a-ling to reset the PLC. Maybe I could have sent an "ON" signal, but I was wondering if I should go about this in a different way. Again, I want to control the lights behind buttons one and eight (configured as a six button KPL, if that matters) via other switches/PLC groups.
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dhoward
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| Posted: June 30 2007 at 14:52 | IP Logged
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Skip,
It sounds as if you're going about it the right way. If you want everything to be synchronized, then you must crosslink every device to every other device. You also must control the device using a group when controlling the device from the PLC (again, with every device in the group crosslinked) since a direct PLC command will not keep things in sync.
What may be the problem is that it sounds as if you're trying to tread a KPL configured to be 6 buttons as if it were in 8 button mode. When a KPL is in 6 button mode, the top big button and the bottom big button are internally linked. You cant control them independently and you only control them through button 1. When you turn button 1 on, the top button will light and the bottom button will turn off and vice versa. In 6 button mode, you would typically only address buttons 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. You won't have 2, 7, or 8.
Depending upon what you're trying to do however, you may be able to place the KPL in 8 button mode but leave the button layout as a 6 button KPL.
However, no matter how you configured it, it should not have locked up the KPL. It may have been a glitch or it may be a defective unit. You may want to do a factory reset and then have PowerHome reload the links.
Dave.
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nanckekr
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| Posted: September 28 2007 at 11:01 | IP Logged
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I am trying to implement what is described in this post, but can only get half of it working.
My PLC have 4 groups defined, each controlling the same LampLincs, but with different light levels. Group 1 is "All 100%" where group 4 is "All 0%".
My KPL is in 6 button mode. Button #3 is controlling one of the same LampLincs as are part of the PLC groups.
Using Powerhome, I displayed the Links for the PLC. Then I dragged the KPL from the left into the "responder" section of the PLC, edited the group to be "1" for "All 100%" and edited the Button field to be 3 for my KPL button.
I then dragged the KPL into the PLC responder section once more, this time giving it the group 4 for "All 0%" and the button "3".
I then clicked "save" and waited for the update to complete.
Now the KPL LED is going on when the PLC is activating group 0, but if the PLC activate group 4, the light go to 0% as expected but the PLC button is still lit.
I checked the links and I could not see anything wrong in powerhome. Powerhome had ensured that controller links were added into the KPL even though the setup was made on the PLC side.
Have I missed something?
BR,
Anders
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cmhardwick
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| Posted: September 28 2007 at 13:52 | IP Logged
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since you are turning the group 4 "ON" at 0%, the KPL LED will go on. You don't NEED a group set a 0%, you can just send the OFF command to your group 1 and it will turn off the lamplincs AND the KPL.
sample command would be ph_insteon_raw("insteon",1,ioff,0) (don't quote me on the format, doing this from memory). This will turn off all devices in group 1, at the ramprate you set in the group. This will also turn off the KPL button.
Edited by cmhardwick - September 28 2007 at 13:56
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nanckekr
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| Posted: September 29 2007 at 16:10 | IP Logged
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The use case I am trying to implement is that PowerHome is not involved in the communication, but only used to configure the KPL's after which they will talk to each other.
Is that doable, and if so, what am I missing?
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dhoward
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| Posted: September 29 2007 at 21:36 | IP Logged
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Nanckekr,
Welcome to PowerHome!
I believe the problem you're experiencing is that the KPL secondary buttons have no knowledge of dim levels. Even if you dim to 0%, lamplincs will go off, but linked KPL secondary buttons will go on. The only way to get a KPL button to go off, is with an OFF command as ON at 0% will not work.
Dave.
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nanckekr
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| Posted: September 30 2007 at 10:27 | IP Logged
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Hi Dave
Thanks for the good advice. It sound very logical. When I setup linking in the insteon devices using PowerHome, I get the options
- Group
- Button
- D Level
- D Ramp
- A level
- A ramp
- Resp Sort??
...
- Ctlr Rec??
- Resp Rec??
I found out how to setup links that uses the dimming command, but how do I setup links that setup the off command and not just "dim to 0%"
BR,
Anders
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dhoward
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| Posted: October 03 2007 at 14:54 | IP Logged
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Nanckekr,
One thing that I think is overlooked by many people is that the "Links" tab has color coded columns. If you look at the color of the columns in the "Current Device" window (at the top), you'll see blue columns. Blue columns in the "Controllers" screen is data that is contained within the current device and blue columns in the "Responders" screen is data that pertains to the current device. The reddish columns in the Controllers screen are for the controller, the green columns in the Responders screen are for the responders.
So, in the Controllers screen, the Group corresponds to the controllers group (which ultimately is a button #, but Insteon sends the command as a group #). A KPL can have buttons 1 thru 8, the pressing of which will send a command to groups 1 thru 8. In the controllers screen, the "Button" column is blue, so it refers to the currently selected device, in this case the responder since we're looking at the Controllers screen. In this case, the button refers to what will actually respond to the controllers group command. For devices that have only a single group (or button), this field is not changeable and will be set to 0. For devices that have multiple buttons, then you would set this to a value from 1 to the maximum number of buttons. The Responders screen works similarly.
The D Level and D Ramp are short for "Desired" Level and Desired Ramprate. The A Level and A Ramp are short for "Actual" Level and Actual Ramp. The actual columns are not able to be modified by the user and represents the actual value that is stored within the memory of the device as read by PowerHome. This is the value that is used to calculate levels and device status and Insteon devices are controlled. When you want to change the actual level or ramp, you change the values in the "Desired" columns. Since these changes are not instantaneous (they have to be programmed into the device and this is dependant upon Insteon traffic, the Poll interval, etc.), the actual and desired values may be different. As soon as PowerHome has had a chance to update the device, the actual and desired values should match.
The Sort columns are an advanced use feature and allows the user to have control over the creation order of links within devices. In some instances, it's mandatory that links be created after other links such as a KPL as a responder in a group that includes both secondary buttons as the load button (although PowerHome will now default to the correct order) or desireable such as having more critical devices in lower record numbers in order to be more likely to send the group cleanup commands. For these fields, you can place alphanumeric data and PowerHome will just sort by this field when creating links. If you create links one at a time, then the value in this field does not matter. However, if you create multiple links before saving or if you do a rebuild on a device, then the links will be created in the order that they sort to alphanumerically. Each link row contains information for both the Controller and the Responder, hence the color coded columns, with each respective portion of the link contained within either the controller or responder. This is why you have both a controller sort and a responder sort so you can sort each part of the link per device.
The Rec number field is read only and show the user the current order that the links have been created. Links are created starting at record 1 with record 2 representing the second link, etc. This can give you a quick visual representation of just what order the links are currently in in case you want to rebuild the device with the sort columns for a more optimum link order.
There is no way to setup links to use an "off" command. Any group, can be controlled using on, off, fast on, fast off, dim, and brighten commands. If you create a group with 3 lights going 100% on, 2 lights going 50% on, and 1 light going 0% on, then when you send an ON command, this is what you'll get. If you send the same group an OFF command, then all the lights will go off. It's interesting to note, that if you send that same group a FAST ON command, the lights will ALL come full on including the light set to 0% and the lights set to 50%. A FAST ON is what you get if you double-click a controllers button.
HTH,
Dave.
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Topic: KPL as a responder
