Re: [misterhouse-users] Lynx10PLC.pm

[Craig S. <csc...@ya...>]

--- Letcher Ross <le...@co...> wrote:
> I upgraded from version 2.82 to version 2.87 yesterday without any
> problem, except with X10 light dimming using a Lynx10 PLC.  We use a few
> dimmed incandescence lamps for night lights and noticed last night that
> they were all completely dim (or off, for practical purposes).  It may
> be because my Lynx10 PLC is one of the first they made or because the
> X10 lamp modules are old, but a routine like:
> 
>     set $bird_room_night OFF;
>     set $bird_room_night "-50";
> 
> which has worked fine for years, caused the complete dimming of the
> lamps.  Watching an Elk ESM1 signal meter I can see that the "-50"
> routine causes the PCL to send dimming signals for a long time, maybe
> even 30 seconds.
> 
> In the older version of Lynx10PLC.pm dimming routine this dimming
> routine was used:
> 
> my $dim = int(($1 / 100) * 20);
> 
> The current version uses:
> 
> my $dim = int(($1 / 100) * 64);
> 
> Changing the divisor back to 20 lets my old dimming routines run as
> expected.  Is anyone else having this problem?  Should I change the code
> in my dimming routines or change Lynx10PLC.pm each time I update?
> 
> Letcher

I am not sure the best way to resolve this, but it is due to the inconsistent
way that X10 is implemented in the various dimmable devices. I believe that the
older (cheaper?) lamp modules support a smaller number of dim levels. It seems
to be somewhere between 16 and 20. The newer modules (lm14) support finer dim
control with 64 levels. I don't know if the lynx10plc code could be modified to
automatically select the correct number of dims based on the x10 device.
Perhaps the default should be set back to 20 for the +-## format and people
should use the extended format (&P##) for lm14 devices. It looks like the ##%
format would also work since it is converted to &P## before the lynx10 code is
called. What does the group think?

-Craig

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