[Development] Lights, an Idea any comments

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

Ok, I have got the 8 channel dimmer working (No triac's just watching the
firing pulse on a scope) still a few bugs to sort out I am using code from
a
prototype which is 3 years old but it was much closer to what we want than
my current prototype. At the moment I am sending commands to it over a
serial link using SNAP I am going to change this to something simpler so
that a terminal can run it just in case anyone does not want to use the
rabbit. I have not started to code the Rabbit yet.

The question is this, my initial idea was a rabbit core mounted on a
motherboard which had the PIC this was then connected to some daughter
boards each with the drive components on for a channel. This would mean the
box would live either in node 0 or in a cupboard close to the room(s) it
was
controlling. But because we have a high spec rabbit, I wondered if it might
be a idea to split the rabbit and the PIC so that one rabbit could run
several PIC's each of which would be doing 8 channels this would cut the
cost down as only one rabbit is required. It does also mean the software
has
to be much more complicated.

If we do this then I think the PIC should also handle the local control as
the Rabbit would become a single point of failure for several dimmer packs
?

Personally I still prefer one Rabbit, one PIC and 8 Dimmers, with the PIC
driving the triac's and the Rabbit doing the local control and the remote
interface, but I thought the group should decide as this other option would
reduce the cost for large installations.

John





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