[TUTORIAL] Fibaro RGBW with IKEA DIODER color LED strip

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
1

I moved into a new home recently and I used IKEA DIODER lights for under cabinet lighting. Due to the various placements of the lights, I ended up with 4 controllers.

Now that Fibaro RGBW are available in the US, I thought I would take a crack at it and ordered 4 of them after seeing a nifty youtube video of them running - obviously with no instructions on how to wire them. One thing I did like though is that they kept the DIODER controller intact and working along with vera, so I decided to do the same.

Here is what you need:

1 x IKEA DIODER
1 x Fibaro RGBW
1 Pack Arduino Compatible 6" M/F Premium Jumper Wires (I got mine from Fry’s but you can pick them up on NewEgg too: [url=http://bit.ly/1jmHNDQ]http://bit.ly/1jmHNDQ[/url])

Wires with RGBW Unpacked:

[size=18pt]Step 1: [/size]

Install your DIODER strips and make sure they work correctly and you are comfortable with them

[size=18pt]Step 2:[/size]

Cut your jumper wires in half and strip the ends.

[size=18pt]Step 3:[/size]

Diagram: http://i.imgur.com/K6uyCV3.jpg

You are going to add both stripped wire ends into each of the following:
[table]
[tr][td]12/24vdc[/td][td]White[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]GND[/td][td]Black[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]R[/td][td]Red[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]G[/td][td]Gray[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]B[/td][td]Blue[/td][/tr]
[/table]

Here’s mine all wired up: http://i.imgur.com/d4PYjBI.jpg

Make sure they are good and tight in there as the Fibaro let some out when I was wiring them to the DIODER’s which made me have to take it apart and screw them in again.

[size=18pt]Step 4:[/size]

Attach the female ends of the jumper wires to the DIODER hub in the following order (when looking at it with the controller port at the bottom):

Black, Red, Blue, Gray, White

Same order for the males into the controller connector when its facing up and you are looking at the top.

This should clarify: http://i.imgur.com/9IsYhGO.jpg

Wired up: http://i.imgur.com/K1T6CUc.jpg

Make sure the DIODER controller powers on and changes color. If it works as it did before, then the Fibaro will also work.

[size=18pt]Step 5:[/size]

Put your Vera in learning mode. The Fibaro RGBW has an auto join so mine picked them up automatically. If it doesn’t, triple click the B button on the bottom of the Fibaro RGBW so it puts itself out there.
[size=18pt]
Step 6:[/size]

Make sense of the loads of _Dimmable Light that just showed up.

Each Fibaro RGBW will show up with 6 of these.

Edit each one, click the settings tab. If the ID is a number, this is your master On/Off/Dimmer and will report wattage usage etc. I name this RGBW - Controller.

The rest of them will show up with e1-e5 which are:
[table]
[tr][td]e1[/td][td]W[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]e2[/td][td]R[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]e3[/td][td]G[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]e4[/td][td]B[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]e5[/td][td]Does nothing[/td][/tr]
[/table]

There you have it.

My next step was to create scenes for a master on/off and for various colors. I will probably use PLEG to sync them better and also get some sort of wall mounted scene controller to turn them all on/off.

I hope this helps someone as I scoured the net looking for this tutorial and once I figured it out, I guess its my duty to put it out there.

2

Thank you!

I’ve been wanting to do this exact same project. Experimented with hue light strips, but they’re very dim. This looks like it’ll fit the bill nicely. Superb images and superb write up.

3

Where did you buy the controller in the US? I’ve been looking, but can’t find a reseller.

4

[quote=“Engelwood, post:2, topic:181573”]Thank you!

I’ve been wanting to do this exact same project. Experimented with hue light strips, but they’re very dim. This looks like it’ll fit the bill nicely. Superb images and superb write up.[/quote]

Thanks. These turned out very bright and with 4 systems, the counter lighting is nearly as bright as the ceiling spots.

They are supposedly going to launch in the summer, but I just went on their site and ordered from there.

Process:

Go to http://www.fibaro.com/us/where-to-buy
Select consumer orders. Fill out the info and in the comments put in what you are looking for.
Their head of biz dev will email you a form and invoice with pricing where you can select what you want. I got mine for $69 each.
You can order anything on their site pretty much. My model numbers all have a special “US” in them.

5

The Hue strips are RGB rather than RGBW, aren’t they? That might have something to do with them being a bit dimmer, and not giving whites as nice as the hue bulbs do. Compared to the bulbs, I was a bit disappointed in their LED strip, and this looks like a nice alternative at about the same price.

6

How many strips can I run from a single controller? I was thinking of buying a couple long strips from eBay for the top of my cabinets.

7

The Hue strips are RGB rather than RGBW, aren’t they? That might have something to do with them being a bit dimmer, and not giving whites as nice as the hue bulbs do. Compared to the bulbs, I was a bit disappointed in their LED strip, and this looks like a nice alternative at about the same price.[/quote]

I believe so. The hue strips only give off 120 lumens. Not nearly enough for anything but accent lighting. Shame as the bulbs are fairly nice.

8

I’ve implemented this ‘hack’ on my UK IKEA Dioders and both the controller and the Fibaro work independently. However as a follow up question, if you turn on the lights via Z-Wave command can you then turn them off using the physical controller? What about the reverse? If you set the lights using the physical controller, is the change reflected in the Veralite control panel?

It appears that I can use one or the other, but using both controls simultaneously gets the system ‘confused’.

Has anyone else had this issue?

9

Yeah this is expected. Basically you have 2 different on off switches.

If you turn it on with the controller it can only be turned off with the controller and same for via zwave.

The way around this is to get a cheap zwave switch as a physical controller. This isn’t a problem for me as I did my whole kitchen up with these and I wouldn’t want to control each one individually but rather as a set.

10

Thanks Alienz, I guess as the switch in the (UK) controller feels like a ‘push on/push off’ (momentary contact?) I had hoped that the Fibaro would be able to detect any state changes as they passed through and override it.

Oh well. :-\