Suppose I have a bunch of PCS switches all with a certain scene at address A1.

So I send an A1 - ON signal to activate the scene.

What happens if I send an A1 - OFF signal?

If you send an "A1 ON" to activate the scene "A1 OFF" turns off the scene.

Bill
www.homeautomationnet.com

So A1 OFF will make the lights all ramp down to 0% I guess. But at what ramp rate?

It's a fade off, at around 3 seconds. In order to have them fade off slowly you would have to set up one of the other 16 scenes at 0% and set the ramp rate at what you desire. Swiches programmed to respond to that scene will then go to 0%. The master programming manual on the PCS site (www.smartswitch.net) covers setting the light levels.

Bill
www.homeautomationnet.com

Bill,

I just ran a little test and the ramp rate will be whatever ramp rate is set for that particular scene address.

For example...

If A01 is set for a scene address with a ramp rate setting 9, 1 minute. Sending A01 A-off- would ramp the light down to off at the 1 minute rate.

I wonder...

If, say, an A02 ON signal ramps down a light to 0% in 3 seconds, then what would happen if you send A02 OFF?

Tony,

A02 A-off- would also ramp the lights down to off at a 3-second rate.

But A2 ON already has ramped down the lights to 0%! So how can you ramp down to 0% if it already is at 0%?

By the way, I don't really understand your notation. When you say "A02 A-off," what does the "A" in "A-off" stand for? Does it stand for "all?"

The light switch is a little computer. If it's at 0% and receives a signal telling it to ramp to 0% it'll do just that. It'll ramp from 0% to 0% which, of course, will appear to anyone watching as though nothing happened at all. The importance of this is that no matter where the light is, it'll ramp to 0% when it received the scene address off command. It makes no difference how it got to it's present intensity (i.e. it isn't necessary that scene had previously been activated) it'll dutifully ramp to 0%.

The second "A" is the house code. You can't send an X10 command without sending a house code, too. To turn on a light you send the unit address, A02, followed by a command, A-on-. Those are two separate X10 signals.

You could have sent A01, A02, A03, A-on- and all three lights would have turned on. OTOH, if you send A01, B01, B-on- then only B01 will turn on as the only -on- command that's been sent was for the B house code.

Now I get it!

Larry,

I ran the same test before I said what I did, with a default P8 20% with a 15 second ramp rate. I guess my eyes are not what the used to be, because it seamed faster than 3 seconds to off. I should have tried it with a minute or two, so it was more noticeable. Anyway with a basic address, 16 scenes/intensities/ramp rates, I have never come across a situation where I ran out of capability.

Bill
www.homeautomationnet.com

I did it with one on a 30 second rate and set the light to 100% first just to make sure. :)

Within a scene, do all the lights have to be assigned the same ramp rate or can they vary?

Here's a little trick that I think might work for those who want more control.

What if you assigned 4 unit codes for various ramp rates - say (A01 3 sec, A02 9 sec, A03 1 min, A04 9 min) but have it so the lights have zero intensity. Then with the Pronto Remote, you would create a Macro that would call say A01 - nothing would happen. But now you could turn the light on via the remote/macro and it would ramp up at 3 seconds. Hopefully this makes sense.

My ultimate goal is to have varying levels of ramp rates and intensity levels for each individual light or as scenes. What would I need to pull this off?

Thanks.

1. The settings for a scene are switch specific. i.e. one light in a scene could go to 100% instantly while another light in the scene goes to 50% over 5 minutes.

2. You can't just "call A01". An X10 command is a unit code followed by a command. If you only send the unit code then that switch will wait for the next command on the same house code and will respond to that. So, if you sent "A01" nothing happens until a command is sent for the "A" housecode. If an hour or two later you try to turn on light A12 by sending "A12 A-on-" then lights A12 *AND* A01 will come on.

If you want different ramp rates then create scenes with differing ramp rates then *USE* those scenes when you want the lights to go on, or off, at that ramp rate.