Active TopicsActive Topics  Display List of Forum MembersMemberlist  Search The ForumSearch  HelpHelp
  RegisterRegister  LoginLogin
PowerHome Programming
 PowerHome Messageboard : PowerHome Programming
Subject Topic: how to turn a KPL button off in a group Post ReplyPost New Topic
Author
Message << Prev Topic | Next Topic >>
cmhardwick
Senior Member
Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: July 08 2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 290
Posted: December 18 2006 at 22:50 | IP Logged Quote cmhardwick

Ok, maybe I'm being majorly brainlocked on this, but I can't get this to do what I'm wanting. I have a scene setup for dining that turns off all the downstairs lights except for the living room lamps on nice and low and the dining room chandelier on dim. No problem with this part, however, I can't, via linking, get the secondary buttons on the various KPLs that control other downstairs lights to go OFF when I do this scene so, even though the light they control is off, the button is still on. And if it was off, it comes on when I do the scene. I've tried setting the level to 0 in the links to no effect.

To clarify:
KPL 1 - button 4 - Dining (turn off all downstairs and set living room and dining room dim)
KPL 2 - button 3 - controls the foyer light which the dining scene turned off ... can't get this to go off and if it was off, it comes on.
KPL 3 - button 5 - controls the fireplace spots ... same issue as above.

It's very frustrating because I'm sure it's something simple I'm missing.

Thanks in advance!!

__________________
Cicero, Enjoying automation!
Back to Top View cmhardwick's Profile Search for other posts by cmhardwick Visit cmhardwick's Homepage
 
dhoward
Admin Group
Admin Group
Avatar

Joined: June 29 2001
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 4447
Posted: December 26 2006 at 12:13 | IP Logged Quote dhoward

Cicero,

To the best of my knowledge, you cant do what you'd like to do. Even though you've set the level to 0, it's still an Insteon "ON" command and the individual KPL button LED's have no concept of dim...just On or Off.

What you need to be able to do is via groups, be able to select what command the device should respond to be that On, Fast On, or Off and then have a command to "trigger" the group. Alas, this is not in the Insteon protocol.

The best you can do here is to use PowerHome to accomplish what you want rather than linking. Then when you press the appropriate button, the links will set the light levels, PowerHome will fire a trigger and then cleanup the KPL button levels.

I'll use this space to highlight a little known feature of PowerHome. Creating special groups like this in the PLC will tend to eat up your available PLC groups fairly quickly. To work around certain Insteon limitations, I people are creating alot of 1 device groups so that they can achieve things like multiple ramprates for turning on a single device. PowerHome has a function (ph_insteongroupcu) which allows you to send just the Group Cleanup message of a group. What this means is that you could setup groups with lots of multiple devices and then just control individual members of that group rather than the entire group. Say you want the ability to turn your lights on remotely at a slower ramprate than is set locally. Say you want this ability on every light in your house. If you've got 50 devices, then this would eat up 50 of your available PLC groups. However, you could do this with 1 group by putting every device in this group with the desired ramprate and then controlling individual devices with the ph_insteongroupcu command rather than controlling the entire group with the ph_insteongroup function.

Please note that if you start using this technique that devices controlled with the ph_insteongroupcu command will not reflect the correct status in the Device Status screen (PowerHome 1.03.4.9 and earlier). This has been fixed in the upcoming version.

Hope this helps,

Dave.
Back to Top View dhoward's Profile Search for other posts by dhoward Visit dhoward's Homepage
 

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login
If you are not already registered you must first register

  Post ReplyPost New Topic
Printable version Printable version

Forum Jump
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot create polls in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum