I am trying to hook up a pair of Aeotec nano dimmers to a 2-gang retractive switch (Retrotouch Crystal) with a 3-wire (neutral) system. 1 switch controls 6 x 4.5W dimmable LEDs, the other 2 of the same.
I believe I have all my wiring connected correctly but can’t seem to get the switches working properly. Initially when I installed the dimmers and added them to ST they were detected as Aeotec Nano Dimmers (I guess there is an official DH for these now?). All good I thought, except that the switches themselves wouldnt dim the lights (only turn them on/off with each press and one of them has quite a long delay), nor could I dim from within the ST app (there is a dimmer slider for the device but it would only turn them on at 100% and off at 0%). Reading up on some community pages I then proceeded to install the Z-Wave Tweaker DH and tried messing with a few of the dimmer parameters (#120 to change the switch type and #131 & 132 to change the dimming ranges). Messing with these seemed to make matters worse, the lights wouldnt work at all. So I changed the DH again to a generic Z-wave metered dimmer. Now the switches seem to intermittentently work (still only turning on/off), but I seem to be able to now switch on/off and dim using the ST app. Although the app-controlled dimming works, it seems to be quite clunky. The dimming action is not very smooth as the lights dim in stages with a ~1 second delay between each, rather than a smooth dim as the % drops. What I want to get to is what I believed to be the correct action, which is a single press of the retractive switch will power the lights on or off, and holding the switch will dim them up/down depending on the previos state. Am I correct in expecting it to work that way? If so can anybody help me with the correct parameters and/or best DH for these dimmers to get the working correctly? TIA!
When you use the tweaker, it’s just for the purpose of sending the parameter changes. The device will not work at all as long as it is still assigned to the tweaker for its DTH.
So you switch the assignment to the tweaker, make whatever parameter changes you want, Then switch the assignment back to your every day DTH for that device. Your parameter changes will have been saved within the device itself.
But you can’t operate a device while it’s assigned to the Tweaker. You can only query the configuration and modify it.
I know sometimes that means you have to switch back-and-forth a couple of times if you’re testing different parameter settings, but that’s just how it goes.
Aha, thanks, that has helped a little, though the switches are still working unpredictably and the dimming is more or less the same. I’ve adjusted the parameter value for switch type (#120) between 1 and 3 (toggle/momentary) which seems to make little difference, and set the upper and lower dimming ranges (parameters 132 and 131 respectively) to 99 and 0. Using the physical switches the dimming doesn’t seem to work at all, nor does it always turn the lights on/off. Using the ST app I can power the lights on/off fine and the dimming sort of works, though only between 100 and 25% as anything lower just seems to turn the lights off. The switches seem to do random things if I’ve used the app to do any kind of control initially.
Hmm, that might be the issue for one of the banks of lights (2 x 4.5W), but the other bank (6 x 4.5W) should be comfortably above the total mininum load requirement for a 3-wire system (10W).
What’s the brand and model of the bulbs being controlled? And did you get a chance to read the whole thread that I linked to. There are people with exactly the same symptoms, although maybe they have a different underlying problem.
RIght, I’m nearly there. Dimming sort of works now, but still a bit clunky. I’ve added a new post to the thread referenced above to see if the folks there can help.
Very interesting. I’ve just installed 6 Nano dimmers around my flat, using the Retrotouch Crystal Retractives! My kitchen light are an array of 5 Enlite EN8, the big brother to the EN5. Dimming etc works fine. But if you read the specs, there is a minimum load wattage of 20W for 2-wire or 11W for 3-wire installations. 2 EN5s probably draw very little power. I have less issues because i have an array of 5. But 2 is probably not enough. I think you can try using a bypass.
