First, fba great job with Altsteon, thank you for all you effort.
I have a question about the operation of a LampLinc dimmer when controlled from the device buttons. I have a VeraLite and 2413U plm and these control the dimmer perfectly using Altsteon. If I use the buttons on the dimmer to control the light there is a significant delay before the interface updates. When I use Altsteon_cli I can see a"Starting manual light change" and “Stopping manual light change” messgaes as I push the dimmer buttons. The UI does not update until a “Light brightness is …” message presumably to some poll activity from the deamon? Is there someway to force the poll of the dimmer once the “Stopping manual light change” message is recieved to eliminate the delay in UI update.
Thanks
Andy
You might try making sure you have paired the switch to your PLM. This is normally done by holding the small tab button on the light for 5 seconds or so, until it starts blinking (or beeps). Then press and hold the button on the PLM modem for 3 seconds, until it beeps (the order is important here). Once this is done, you should be much better response from local control.
Jimbo
Thanks for the response, I believe I have the lamplinc linked correctly to the plm.
The lamplinc address is 18.9B.4D, when I do a dump_aldb for the lamplinc and then the plm (1A.75.D1) I get the following.
Lamplinc first:
Aldb record, Flags : E2 Group : 01 Addr : 1A.75.D1 Data1 : FE Data 2 : 19 Data3 : 00 High : 0F Low : FF
Aldb record, Flags : A2 Group : 01 Addr : 1A.75.D1 Data1 : 00 Data 2 : 19 Data3 : 00 High : 0F Low: E7
PLM next:
Aldb record, Flags : E2 Group : 01 Addr : 18.9B.4D Data1 : 01 Data2 : 0E Data3: 3B
Aldb record, Flags : A2 Group : 01 Addr : 18.9B.4D Data1 : 00 Data2 : 00 Data3 :00
I’ve just got the Vera Lite and installed Altsteon on it. The links may have been setup at different times as I played with a previous software package. Would you recommend wiping everything and starting again?
My only hesitation from doing that is that I have a Garage Hawk I’m also trying to get working with the Vera and I worry about wiping the factory links. Does the provided information look correct? It appears to have bidirectional master/slave links, but I’m not sure if the difference in the data fields is causing an issue?
Thanks for the help.
Regards
Andy
Those links look correct to me. Do you happen to know what “version” the lamplink module is, or approximately what date you purchased it on? I have not really tried a lamplink with local controls, but I have used the dimmer switches, which seem to work, but this depends on the “version” of the switch. The older “V1” switches I have are not working 100% yet, I have been trying to get ahold of FBA so I can help get this fixed, but have not heard back yet. Perhaps this is a similar problem if your switches are older.
Jimbo
Sorry for the delay in response; out and about for a few days.
The device is LampLinc Dimmer Dual-Band #2456D2. There is a sticker on it that states R1.5 and 0211 which I assume are the revision number and the manufacture date. Is there any way to upgrade these devices or are you stuck with what you purchase?
Once again thanks for looking at this with me.
Regards
Andy
Yes, those of the firmware versions. A 1.5 firmware is a slightly older one, but according to my notes supports the what is called the “i2” protocol version. So in theory, it should work. My guess is the local switch is not sending the same command the Altsteon daemon is looking for. In other words, I think you are running into a similar problem as myself, the switch is older than currently supported. Unfortunetly I don’t know of any way to upgrade the firmware. I have been trying to get ahold of the Altsteon author but have not had much luck yet. Hopefully that will happen soonish and we can get these issues resolved. This specific problem, it is possible we could add a work-around in the Vera script files (we could probably get the response message and parse it in the scripts). I will start looking into this possibility, it will take a week or two, I will let you know how it goes.
Thanks Jimbo.
I’ll continue to do some digging myself and let you know if I discover anything. Rather new to all this stuff so working my way up the learning curve.
Regards
Andy
Jimbo
As they say a funny thing happened…
I added a second LampLinc Dimmer and established the same 2 way links and it worked. The only difference was that resumeDim was enabled in the second unit. I enabled resumeDim on the first unit and now if I change the state of the light from the LampLinc device the plm recognizes it and updates the Vera. There is one slight issue if you use one click to let the light come on slowly, the first value is reported to the plm and then you have to wait for a period of time for the LampLinc to report it’s final state. The UI eventually syncs up, but you have to wait for it to report its prightness, seems to be about 5 mins or so. Using altsteon_cli you can see the LampLinc repots only one lamp brightness after a single button push so it appears the Altsteon software is working correctly, as the LampLinc does not appear to report reaching final setting until it next reports in. Not perfect, but good to get working in some capacity.
Hope this helps.
Andy
Andy,
Strange that option makes it work. I have also noticed the slow dim rate causes the wrong value to show up in the UI (this happens will all my dimmer switches). I am trying to work on a solution to that, but have not yet heard from fba yet. I have a possible work-around i am working on, I will let you know if I get it to work properly.