I want to control Somfy shades, RadioRa (or something else that can handle scene lighting?) via a wall switch. How can I get an MSC 400 to handle this?
TIA

Step 1 - Sell MSC 400 on ebay.

Step 2 - Take money to local CI outfit and pay them to design system.

Step 3 - ???????

Step 4 - Profit!

Thank you very little.

Sorry to make a joke at your expense, but little is a term I would use to describe the amount of useful information in your post.

If you really want some help or information, take a little (there's that word again) time to write out an intelligent question in a post containing all the relevant (and irrelevant) information and I or someone else would be more then happy to try and assist.

I could have just as easily typed something like "wire the wall switch to an input on the MSC and program it to trigger the shades and lights."

Maybe that would have helped more.

Ok. How about this. Let's say I have a stack of gear in the middle of a room. An MSC-400. Somfy shades and motors. And a RadioRa controller.

I want to trigger an MSC-400 macro from a wall switch that will set the Somfys and a RadioRa scene. What wall switch should I be using? Is this even possible?

MainLobby has been suggested to me but then I get into servers and trying to send commands to the MSC-400 and I am in both out of my depth, and to a dollar amount that I might as well just go to my local CI outfit.

Well, as far as a wall switch, anything that will close a pair of contacts, up to and including a standard 110 wall switch (if it is not wired to a 110 circut), will do if you have a 2 conductor low voltage wire going from the switch location to the MSC.

Please, please don't take that to mean that you can hook a low voltage 2 conductor to a live wall switch!


Any contact closure that you can achieve can be sensed by the MSC and a macro triggered off of that.

Controlling the shades is easily done via the relays on the MSC.

The RadioRA is controllable if you have:
a) Either of the RadioRa IR or 232 interface modules or
b) An in-wall master keypad with an IR window and an emitter at the master keypad location - in which case you could trigger scenes from that master control via IR


So the short answer is yes it is completely possible if you have the wiring in place.

I think this is where I am lost. Is there a product out there that will let me achive this? Can I just run a pair of wires out of the MSC-400 to a standard wall switch? This seems like a bad idea, even if you could, how does it know the circut is closed?

The MSC-400 has input terminals that sense when they are shorted together.

Almost all of the common switches you would encounter in your normal day are just shorting two wires together to make something happen.

To that end, any such switch, radio sack probably has about 500 to choose from online, if connected to the correct inputs on the MSC, will work to trigger a macro.

So yes, in essence, you could just run a pair of wires out of the [correct terminals of the] MSC-400 to a standard wall switch, if that's what you wanted. Most of the folks around here would install some kind of groovy momentary contact push-button or even something with multiple buttons. If you just need something simple, stay simple, IMO.


As to how to write the macro so that the MSC correctly interprets the switch is another side of it.



Link to switches at radio sack:

[Link: radioshack.com]


-Ha 558, I was pretty close

Thanks Cassidy. Now all I have to do is figure out how the MSC-400 works. I suppose taking it out of the box would heplp.