Re: Re: CBUS & Comfort Questions

[Kevin Hawkins <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

What you would probably do is leave the X10 module ON continually (but
dimmed to 0% if needed) during evening hours.  At bedtime & during the
day still turn it off, at dusk bring it ON at 0%.  Then a new dim level
doesn't have to go through the 100%  full brightness reference and dim
down.   You can always re-reference through 0 as well by sending tons of
DIMS.  Now when needed you would send successive dim/bright commands to
simulate a 4 second ramp.  I can't remember how many dim levels there
are  - is it 16 or 32 . ISTR 16.  So you would send a DIM or BRIGHT
command every 1/4 second once you see the 4 second ramp command to 1 or
255 from C-Bus to achieve the equivalent ramp.  You would track where in
its brightness range you calculate the lamp to be somewhere in Comfort
(count dims and brights).  Then when the ramp is cancelled on release of
the switch you compare the reported C-Bus brightness converted to 16
levels to where you think the X10 lamp is actually at and adjust
slightly perhaps by a DIM or BRIGHT command or two.

If you do it the way below you really do not have any feedback from the
lamp whilst holding the switch down. Even worse all immediate level
changes or scene commands would be delayed by 4 seconds.  I am not sure
if Comfort provides some inbuilt  intelligence for absolute levels
settings in X10. I know HomeSeer, the xAP X10 conduit and HomeVision
do.  If it does (ie setting a lamp to 75% brightness that is known to be
currently on at 50% is achieved by sending 4 bright commands) then
Comfort could offload some of the calculations and tracking needed. All
you need is the 1/4 second periodic for the dim/bright commands.  Of
course if local X10 changes are made it all goes a bit wrong and you
will get big jumps as the press to dim is released as the X10 moves to
the final C-Bus level .

K

Paul Gordon wrote:
> Aha,
>
> That's actually quite interesting. So I guess the likelihood is that
> trying to get a "press and hold to dim cycle" going this way
would
> probably result in the X10 light first either switching OFF or ON to
> 100% initially, and then proceeding to dim up or down to the requested
> level... - which isn't that far off how some X10 modules dim natively
> anyway!
>
> Would it be feasible to code around this in Comfort perhaps?...
>
> I'm thinking along the lines of...
>
> If counterXX changes
>   Wait 4 seconds
>   Read value of CounterXX
>   Send X10 preset dim to required address with value of counterXX
> End if
>
> Of course this is only postulated purely as an academic curiosity... -
> the reality of building a 4 second delay into a lighting dim response
> sounds like an appalling idea!!
>
> Paul G.
>
>