Who makes them besides Lutron?

hunter douglas

sloar shading
http://www.solarshadingsystems.com/

I use BTX. Very solid stuff. They do alot of commercial installations and they work with any blind out there.
Did a job where the client wanted 15 9X3 windows done in Hunter-Douglas silloettes. A local drapery co sent the blinds to BTX, they mounted them to the headrail and provided great tech support during the install.

Somfy. stick with lutron

I did a/v in a master bedroom on Saturday where hunter douglas blinds were just installed. Client pressed one button and two blinds went up and one down. Pressed another button and more wacky things happened. "Oh, he's coming back to fix it!" (Hope so!) Makes me not want to put the commands on her MX900.

I just had a meeting with Soleil at a clients home today. They make battery operated shades (when wires are impossible) and RF control that has an RS-32 interface for integration.

I'll keep you guys posted. A few weeks will be needed.

Tom, truth be told, you could have fixed it for them in about 7 seconds - I realize that it's not your job, and I would probably not do it either. Just pointing out that the HD system is REALLY easy to figure out.

Must AC shade motors are OEM'ed out of Somfy, including those sold by Lutron. DC motors come from all sorts of sources including propritary. If you are selling them then the first rule is to determine how they are to be controlled and what your control system can do.

My wife went to one of the Window treatment companies I deal with and ordered .....what ever, including motorized roman shade. I made up my own relay control solution and gave him back the POS Somfy IR he put in. But then again I had Crestron as the control system to fall back upon. If you have a Pronto, MX-XXX universal remote you will need an off the shelf IR solution, unless you know how to build your own.

It is less important to decide which company to use as which way to control them. If you have a centralized lighting system Vangage. Lutron and Crestron have motor modules to control AC motors. Vanage and Crestron have modules for dc motors and Lutron a variety of LV relay cards, depending on the system ( GRX-AV, HWI-CCR ).

Blinds can be a bit more tricky then shade/drape control because not only can they have up and down control but open/shut of the blinds. Sometimes this requires additional relays, sometimes you only need to energize the up/down for longer. Obviously, IR control involves additional IR codes.

Shade/drape control is one of the last bastions of machinics controlling the business. One can buy the parts and easily build one's own shade/drape. Few companies--Lutron being a notable exception-- have any engineers or engineering behind their product. Even Somfy has some of the worst engineers I have ever dealt with. They are either ignorent or intentionally ignorent. The key bit of information you need that no one tells you is that you CANNOT depend on the limit switch. You must find a solution that cuts off power to the shade once the limit is reached. Most of these motors leak and maintaining power at the motor and depending on the limit switch to work properly and not permit current to pass to the motor will eventually lead to failure; failure of the motor or the controlling device ( relay ). Obviously, a device like a centralized motor module only permits power to pass for a specified time period works perfectly. Somfy's electronics are among the worst I have ever touched. Hunter-Douglas is slightly better but how hard is it to build a relay to control a dc motor?

Alan

Alan