Project has dozens of Somfy shades all working locally via Somfy keypad and via the Crestron system (via RS-484).

1 Zone has an odd issue. All interior and exterior shades are being controlled and operating perfectly from the local Somfy keypad as long as the Zone is disconnected from the home run Cat5e that connects to the RS-485 distribution blocks in the control room (where we connect our RS-485 cable from Crestron).

Once we connect the home run cable at the control room we lose the ability to control any shades in the room from the keypad. We do however gain control over all shades but 4. These 4 are wired to the same 4 motor tap.

I tried to help troubleshoot but i don't know anything about Somfy wiring programming installation etc. The manuals are typical...great if you know what you are looking for but not much hand holding. So at this point i am looking for an expert troubleshooter in the Phoenix area to show up and play hero.

Thanks

Somfy's tech support should be able to give you some clues, or at least tell you where to look.

I would first suspect a problem with the wiring or connector(s). It could also be an addressing issue (i.e., two different devices with the same address), or maybe a defective component (shade, keypad, etc.) that's affecting that part of the network.

Have all of the wires been tested? Have you tried disconnecting EVERYTHING except the one home-run cable going to that room?

If that doesn't work, it's a wiring issue with that cable, or something in the room. If that cable does work by itself, then it's something else in the house. Start reconnecting the other cables one by one, until it stops working.

Putting aside the 485 issue which i can't comment on, Are you saying that the directional active wires of these 4 motors are connected together?

If so that's your problem.

Tubular motors (with few exceptions) leak voltage out of the unused active wire assuming they are controlled by switching power between 2 active wires to start with.

If we say active 1 is up and active 2 is down.

When you feed power into active 1 of a motor it will go up but also leak voltage out of the active 2 (down wire). When you have motors wired together, the voltage being leaked from all the motors active 2 wires is feeding all the other active 2 wires and trying to make the blind go down at the same time as you are telling it to go up. If you disconnect all but 1 motor from that group of 4, i'll bet the remaining motor works.

Different motors can display different symptoms when this happens, sometimes you get no reaction, sometimes you get buzzing but no movement, sometimes you get some movement but it is very jittery and odd (this is common for Somfy) i have even seen blinds within the group go up one at a time with one starting as another stops. There can be all sorts of odd behavior.

One of the jobs of a Somfy "Moko" that you connect motors up to is to disconnect the unused active wire and stop the voltage from going to the other unused actives.

Hope that helps.

Somfy has an RS-485 communications bus. They have a device called a "4 motor tap". RS-485 goes in and out of this device. The motor tap distributes the communications bus to each of the shades via an RJ11 or 12 cable.

You have probably already seen this but it sounds like you have a Somfy digital network.

[Link: somfypro.com]

Yes. Unfortunately the wiring/installation isn't as straightforward as the diagram in your link.

Following up. After troubleshooting (the client and I) we discovered that 1 shade is taking out the other 3 connected to the same 4 motor tap. Once i unplug that single shade i have control of 3 of the 4 problem shades. So for now everything is working from the local keypad and the crestron system except for the one disconnected shade.

The frustrating part about troubleshooting other peoples systems is that i don't know anything about them. It took me hours to guess at the wiring because the guys doing the wiring cant draw a wiring map or tell me how things are connected. They lift their shoulders up and make a mumbled "i dont know" noise. Even now that we have made progress i cant tell you if the current wiring is correct/safe/proper...just that the system is working.

Oh well...on to something different.