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cmctague
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| Posted: March 09 2006 at 11:29 | IP Logged
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In my quest to make all my KPL LEDs "do the right thing" I realized I needed to link some of my KPL buttons to my ControlLinc. One of my KPL buttons is an "All On/Off" toggle button. I wanted this button to reflect the correct status if I then used the "All On" or "All Off" buttons that are built into the ControlLinc. This is easily done using the Create/Edit/Clone but I didn't want to link the KPL button to a ControlLinc button 1-5, because I didn't want this KPL LED to change ubnless "All On/Off" was pressed.
What I ended up doing was going into the Insteon->Types from PowerHome explorer and changing the number of groups for ControlLinc from 5 to 6. Then using C/E/C I was able to create a link on the ControlLinc in group 6 to my KPL button. Since the "All On/Off" of ControlLinc uses group 255 (which is all groups) it will send messages to my KPL but won't force me to bind them to a physical button. So what do people think, luck or FAD?
Edited by cmctague
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dhoward
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| Posted: March 09 2006 at 20:36 | IP Logged
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I have been reading this over and over and I still don't get it  .
I understand that you want the KPL button LED status to be controlled by the "All On/Off" of the ControLinc. I just don't understand how you did it...especially using group 6  .
It sounds very interesting though. It might open up some new possibilities that I hadnt considered.
Dave.
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cmctague
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| Posted: March 09 2006 at 21:01 | IP Logged
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Well, I can't say why it works I just guessed that it might. I think what made me try was the thought, "This thing is so big I can't believe it can only do 5 groups." To get it to work all I really needed to do was trick PowerHome into thinking it really had 6 groups and then it took care of the rest.
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dhoward
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| Posted: March 09 2006 at 21:12 | IP Logged
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Heh,
When I first looked at the ControLinc, I thought "OK, so how do trigger the other stuff. Wheres the rest of the buttons?".
Actually, if you havent found it yet, the ControLinc has a flip down cover with additional buttons, but this is primarily for X-10 control I think (its been awhile since I looked at mine so I cant remember). Still, you would think the thing could do more than 5 groups.
Anyways, how do you get the ControLinc to trigger group 6? Everything I know about this internally gives no indication that this could be done.
Dave.
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cmctague
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| Posted: March 09 2006 at 21:24 | IP Logged
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Ah that is why this is of somewhat questionable use in the general case. It doesn't ever send group 6 itself but 6 gets wrapped in with 1-5 when it sends "All groups(255)" commands. This works fine since in my case I only need it to do something when "All on / all off" is used.
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dhoward
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| Posted: March 09 2006 at 21:38 | IP Logged
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Ah-ha! I finally get it. Kind of a trick, but actually just a one sided link to a non-existant group. The only possible problem is when you changed the ControLinc's groups to 6 and wrote the link, a memory address (unique to the ControLinc) gets changed that Im not sure is used by anything else. But as long as it's working, you're probably safe.
This opens up the possibility of adding support for creating one-sided links...hmmmm, not sure if I want to do that but something to think about.
So you set the ControLinc's groups to 6. Created a link with the ControLinc as a controller on group 6 to your KPL button. The KPL button has a link for group 6 from the ControLinc which will never get fired. The ControLinc has a link for group 6 which will never get fired (if PowerHome supported it, you could delete the link from the ControLinc and what you're doing would still work, that's why I call it one-sided).
You then rely on the way group 255 is handled with Insteon. When a group 255 command is transmitted, any device that has ANY link defined with that address as a controller, will respond to the command. The ControLinc doesnt care or know about your group 6 (you had to do it though to create a bogus link) and just sends groups 1-5 or 255 when all on/off is pressed. The KeypadLinc will never get a command on group 6 but uses this record as a trigger to respond to group 255 from the KPL.
Very nice. A+ for original thinking and innovation .
Dave.
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UpstateMike
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| Posted: March 10 2006 at 09:27 | IP Logged
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I wonder if anything else works like this? If you change the Switchlincs groups to 2 does that mean they will work with double tap triggering for the second group? Or does this only work with a ContrLinc?
How about a Group 9 on a KeypadLinc? (Not sure how you would use it bit just curious)
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dhoward
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| Posted: March 10 2006 at 10:46 | IP Logged
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Mike,
I don't think either of those will really do anything for you since neither the SwitchLinc or the KeypadLinc can send All on or All off (group 255). This is what is really being exploited above.
What you could do is create a "group 6" link between a ControLinc and every device in your house using PowerHome and leave the ControLinc unplugged while PowerHome generates the links. This will keep the unnecessary links from being created in the ControLinc yet allow the "all on" to TRULY be an all on for every device.
Dave.
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cmctague
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| Posted: March 10 2006 at 11:15 | IP Logged
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Instead of unplugging your ControlLinc you could just let PowerHome proceed to program it and then reset the ControlLinc to Factory defaults. This would deliberately create the scenario SmartHome warns about in the ControlLinc Manual:
INSTEON Devices that have been previously linked to ControLinc will still respond to the ALL ON
and ALL OFF Buttons, and dimmable INSTEON Devices will still respond to holding down the ON
or OFF Buttons of the ON/OFF Button Pair that they were originally linked to, as well as the
BRIGHT and DIM Buttons. The reason is that the INSTEON Devices themselves have not been
unlinked from ControLinc. Follow the procedure Unlinking One INSTEON Device from
ControLinc, above, to unlink individual INSTEON Devices.
Dave - Would PowerHome come back around later and attempt to rebuild the links in the background or would it require explicit user interaction?
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dhoward
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| Posted: March 10 2006 at 13:06 | IP Logged
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Chuck,
You could do this, the only problem would be how to get the links that you want to actually be in the ControLinc back in.
PowerHome will never come around and try to add the links back in in the background. It would require user interaction. This is why you would also have a problem getting your links back in. You could use a manual tap-tap linking and when PowerHome scans the device database, it should update the links and overwrite the ones that were there previously. If you were to try and delete the links out of PowerHome, then it would delete the links out of the remote devices as well since PowerHome always treats a link as a pair...one in the controller and one in the responder. You cant delete a link from just one or the other. The same goes for creating. The only way to trick PowerHome around this is for the device to not be available during link creation or deletion.
Dave.
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Topic: Phantom ControlLinc Group
