Hi, we have recently adopted Vera as our choice for a home automation controller. We think the features are unbeatable and it fits well with our product line of cost effective window shade and blind motors. As I study the forums and explore the available plug-ins, I am even more convinced that we made the right decision. Here is the first of a series of articles I have written about Vera:
I have spent quite some time working with various vendors to create an affordable radio control system that can be be used with our products and others. We have settled on the RFXCOM transmitter as one of the best solutions, with a Vera plug-in available, as discussed in the 3 part article series above. It has the “holy grail” capability that so many remote control buffs have been seeking: the ability to learn RF codes.
Regards, Adrian
Adrian Biffen
Systems Administrator
RollerTrol Automation Systems
Do you have a plugin for Vera yet? I’m pulling the trigger on a wall of windows and would be happy to use your product, but I don’t have too much time to play with the settings. I simply want a bank of 5 shades to go up / down and another bank of 3 to do the same.
As an alternative you can always run standard AC or DC motors (meaning no internal RF controller or other controller, they should be able to be wired to a wall switch for operation, either AC or DC) directly with Z-Wave and get position back from the motor and confirmation of movement when coupled with one of the many External Z-Wave Motor Controllers seen here:
The lists in the links above should be merged as they are all basicall the same thing, relay-based Z-Wave motor controllers. Aeon Labs also has one but it may not support postion feedback yet. Fibaro too. Tons of options really.
do you ship to netherlands ?
after looking around for a while i came to the conclusion its kinda hard to find the right choice of product for my (and probably others) needs . i have this Luxaflex which i want to automate with z-wave and i have a vertical blinds that needs automation too. the problem is most controller wont let you do anything more then up n down. i was thinking of putting 2 fibaro shutter control between it but then i have to find the right motor for it. or maybe a motor which can pan and tilt would be nice . europe frequency is also different and there are not many choices yet. the wiki is old and could use some up-to-date info as there are several new devices.
i am looking for a system that can :
open and close my luxaflex
tilt it
-tells me its positions
-can be set with vera to auto-close it when the sun goes down or the sun-level is to high
-can be set at percentual positions i.e poke in the vera to tell it to go to 50% it will set the luxaflex to flat position.
Hi, yes, we ship our motors worldwide. They run on 12v DC, so there isn’t a powering issue. Our power supplies are 50/60 Hz 120/240 V, but you may need a plug prong adapter. They are also safe to handle and install, if you like DIY.
You can adapt our motors to do many different things, and you can interface them with our Universal Interface kit that can work with any relay module, including Z-wave. Here’s the link (the kit also comes with motor of choice):
The only thing I see that could be tricky is the positional feedback. There is an internal pulse counter on the motherboard that is used to detremine the travel limits electronically, but it’s probably easier just to use your own external sensor of some kind.
Regards, Adrian
Adrian Biffen
Customer Service
RollerTrol Automation Systems
thnx
yeah i looked at the page before but the picture doesnt really makes clear what the motor looks like …
maybe you have a picture of it , perhaps even in a real-life situation used ?
this is usable for controlling my luxaflex or is it more for blinds ?
i was thinking of buying a somfy controller as this has built-in position control and a neat slider to control it.
also i want to buy 2 of your motors for my bedroom rollerblinds but i wanna know if they can be controlled with the somfy or together with the controller you supply with the motor
the thing is i want to be able to automaticly open and close my rollerblind but be able to stop it halfway and with pushbutton control to make it go up or down a bit … is this possible with ur controller ?
does the controller somehow report to z-wave a variable containing the pulsecount ?
thnx for taking the time to answer
Hi, the best picture would probably be on this page:
These motors are not compatible with Somfy. Our Universal Interface does not latch, so you can stop it wherever you want by controlling the Z-Wave relay module.
The pulse counter is internal - it stops the motor when it reaches your pre-set limits. This mechanism is entirely internal and it does not provide an output for external sensing. You could modify it to do this, but it would require drilling holes to reach the motherboard.
thnx
yeah that helps
still wonder why somfy cannot control the motor directly. the sensor is in the mainboard so not in the motor right ?
the thing is , the only suitable z-wave controllable motor for vertical blinds and luxaflex is this somfy stuff.
if you happen to have any product that would do the same and is cheaper , you would make a lot of us people happy
the motors you supply are better priced and have nice functionality but are only for blinds or maybe i can fit it to my ceilinglight to make it go up n down.
things are still very confusing as to what one needs to make a good functional system for a few hundred bucks instead of 1000s
to add to this… most people get allready scared by seeing a picture of the motor … my friend asked me if it was a new sort of vibrator for woman lol
i mean most of the customers would need a simple to use system without the technical bladiebla about stuff they never heard of. like he pointed out to me that he would require a box with all the stuff in it , so he can fit it to his existing blinds which are 32mm diameter roller whithout too much huzzle… i also cannot see how to fit these for him as i have to see it in reallife to figure out what does what and where it should go. the ikea approach will do lol
edit : showed the website you pointed to this friend and he immediatly is convinced to buy a few , he said to me why didnt i showed this at first coz it makes all so much clearer ;D
edit2: since both systems can be mixed with the vera i presume i might as well order 2 also :
edit3: as these run also on batteries… is it possible to put the batteries inside the tube behind the motor ?
Hi, I’m not sure about the Somfy system, but the position sensor I’m talking about is inside the motor on the motherboard.
I hear what you’re saying about the cost, and we are attempting to address that problem with our pricing as it get pretty spendy to do a whole house.
If you are talking about the slatted ‘Venetian blind’ style, then you might consider using our ‘mini’ to control the slats. You would have to adapt it to the control mechanism but I know some of our customers have done that quite successfully. It is very small and well suited for that application:
You could also use it to lift the blind (it has a surprising amount of torque for its size), unless it is a really heavy one, in which case you could use our standard series.
Yes, you can run these motors on batteries, but I recommend keeping the charger plugged in as there is a standby idle current of about 25 mA while the radio ‘listens’ for a command. In that case you are actually creating a backup system so that if the house power fails, the blinds will still work.
We separate our batteries from the motor for ease of maintenance and size/type selection reasons. They are still very small and can be easily concealed behind a valance or fascia.
If you really want to go low power, with no house power, with perhaps a solar module in the window, you could consider our ultra-low standby motors, they consume 1,000 times less power at 0.03 mA, but now you’re getting back into the spendy zone:
wonderfull
this is really informative, didnt even think of making it solar-powered but now that you mention ;D
perhaps i can somehow fit this little motor inside the vertical blinds
i need some time to think this over thouroughly
happen to have any update on the z-wave device you are developing yet ? is it gonna be euro frequenty als well ?
appreciate the time and efford you take… i and most certainly others here are very excited to have automated curtains/blinds/verticals and anything else one can hang in front of a window. and offcourse we want to sit on the front row for a dime hehe but im willing to pay the extra 2 cent for slider remote control via my vera ;D
thinkng about the controls and stuff…
it should have:
-temp sensor for the motor in case it overloads or jams
-humidity sensor
-light-sensor
-battery level + alarm
-positiion variables for height and angle
-slider control
-case of the solarpanel driven , a wattage value delivered by the solarpanel and chargestatus
-up/down and rotate control
-dimmer for the led lights
We are looking closely at what we can do with VeraLite, and possibly Z-Wave. But we are also Arduino fans here, and we can make those little guys do almost anything.
We have an active R&D program underway, but I can’t say much about it at the moment. Suffice to say you’ll be seeing some interesting user-friendly user-programmable devices coming out soon (for blinds AND LED lighting). You may even get your wish of an easy to install position sensor, now that you mention it.
Regards, Adrian
Adrian Biffen
Customer Service
RollerTrol Automation Systems
i have one myself ;D
indeed a very nice toy
greatly appreciate you take the sensor in account. this would be very usefull for position control as the vera can use the variable to like tap the button till this set point is reached. this would make a lot of us techies and digibetes happy
We have had many of our customers adapt our motors for a wide range of different applications: skylight shades, aquarium shroud lifters, TV elevators out of the floor, TV art canvas cover when not in use, projector screen aspect ratio adjuster, bottom up blinds, window openers, bamboo roll-up blinds, etc etc
The torque and speed range is certainly appropriate for this type of application. You can very likely adapt our motors to operate vertical blinds by changing the drive shaft adapter to perhaps some kind of chain drive sprocket. Those kinds of parts are readily available (check out Tim Carpenter’s shop on Ebay: The Shade Doctor).
Our ‘Mini’ motors are possibly the world’s tiniest production tubular motors, and they can fit in places where most other tubular motors cannot. They are well suited for custom projects of this nature. You could use one motor to open the blinds, an another to rotate the individual slats. You could assign each motor to a different channel on our multi-channel remotes.
If I can be of further assistance, please contact me anytime.
Regards, Adrian
Adrian Biffen
Systems Administrator
RollerTrol Automation Systems
Hi, it does use the 433 MHz freq, and we have worked with their engineers and some very bright programmers on this forum to create a plug-in that works with Vera and Veralite:
If I can be of further assistance, please contact me anytime.
Regards, Adrian
Adrian Biffen
Customer Service
RollerTrol Automation Systems
Hi @Henkes, I have been in contact with the makers of RFXCOM in the Netherlands and it turns out that their USB transceiver will work with our remote control blind motors:
This means you could use any USB equipped laptop, tablet, phone or web server (such as Vera) to control our motors. You could write your own code to send serial commands to the USB port (the Lua language in Vera is perfect for this, probably already done by someone), or use any off-the-shelf software that supports that kind of functionality.
We are now stocking these units as part of our regular inventory in our shopping cart, as a companion product to Vera and other systems:
