[Development] Lighting update - meeting report

["Dr John Tankard" <john@xxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

Just a update as a result of a YM session last night:

Present Keith, Stuart, John
Apologies Kieran (out with Madonna)

Kicked of with a update, the existing prototype is being ported from a
16C65
to a 16C63 this will reduce the cost and size of the final version. The
software side of the main routines is now complete and the prototype
(currently residing on a PICDEM-2 demo board) is performing the dimming
functions to fire a triac (actually 8 all at once). All the work has been
done using a ICEPIC but it is not anticipated that there will be any
problems switching to physical pic except changing some fuse settings. The
current board is running at 10Mhz but I hope to reduce this to 4Mhz.

Next where t  go next. Keith will be receiving the circuit diagram t day
(if
I can find it) of the prototype triac dimmer so he can work on improving
the
design. next to be discussed was how we operate the dimmer, there will be 3
interface types:-

1)Rabbit t  allow for control over TCP/IP (No work has started on this yet)
2)Simple contact closure switches
3)Remote Keypads (lots of possibilities here)

This approach gives allow it to be used by both people wh  have 1.5 t&e
home
run from light switches or people wh  have CAT5 t  the switches, or a
mixture of the two

The keypads would work on RS485 which would allow more than one for each
dimmer pack, each keypad would have a minimum of one 12c508 or similar t
handle the conversation with the 16C63 back in the dimmer.

Keith had a brilliant idea about how t  simplify the situation with contact
closure users, we would mount the 12c508's on the motherboard of the dimmer
and run the 1.5mm t&e back t  the dimmer pack, the 12c508 would then
still
talk with the master pic on the RS485 bus thus making the programming of
the
16c65 much simpler and it would mean that the same motherboard could be
used
for both applications just by adding the extra 12c508's for home run 1.5
t&e
operation

There is quite a lot of work now t  be done developing this part of the
system in terms of programming

Next meeting date t  be confirmed but likely to be toward the end of the
month

IF anyone has a wish list of features they would like/dream of in the
dimmer
could you please email me off list and I will repost the full list t  the
group

John





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