LilHessy Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Hi there, I am doing a bathroom remodel currently and am interested in in putting a 3 button keypad in. What I would like to be able to do is turn on the fan using one of the switches, then when it is turned off I would like the fan to run for an additional 15 minutes so that I dont have to worry about moisture.Thanks Jesse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henniae Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 If you are running version 1.6 software or greater you can use a timer to implement this. When you press the 3-button to turnoff the fan you would start the timer. When the timer expires its "timer expired" event would then turn off the fan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LilHessy Posted March 4, 2009 Author Share Posted March 4, 2009 Thanks for the quick response. My overall goal is to have button 1 turn on and off lights, button 2 cortrol the fan, and button 3 turn on and off distributed audio in the bathroom. Is this logical thinking? Is there anything else that I should be considering for the bathroom? Maybe a 6 button so I can control volume as well as some future device?Thanks Jesse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henniae Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Thanks for the quick response. My overall goal is to have button 1 turn on and off lights, button 2 cortrol the fan, and button 3 turn on and off distributed audio in the bathroom. Is this logical thinking? Is there anything else that I should be considering for the bathroom? Maybe a 6 button so I can control volume as well as some future device?Thanks JesseThose are all great ideas and very doable. The 6 button would be a nice upgrade if you want to control the volume. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 LilHessy-I posted about this very topic here:http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=1926though that was back when there were no timers. I mention it because I included in the programming a visual indicator of the fan status, whether it's ON (red) OFF (black) or in countdown mode (YELLOW).It'd be even easier to do now with the timer, but I still am using the code posted in that thread (quoted below)In my programming, I specifically wanted the fan to come on automatically whenever the lights came on, and I wanted to make sure that if the lights went off, and then back on, the fan would leave countdown mode and return to full ON.If I were to redo it today, I'd have the light turning on cause the fan to go on and the fan timer to go off (whether or not the timer had already been on), the light going off to cause the fan timer to start down, and the fan timer running out to turn the fan off. We have a Panasonic fan that, true to their advertisements, is too quiet to know when it's on, thus the visual indicator with the LED color.Hope this helps!--JasonThis is somewhat related to the Loops thread, but my interest in it is more around "good ways to program countdowns" so I created it as its own thread. I've programmed the fan outside our shower to go on when the shower light goes on, and then turn off 25 minutes after the shower light goes off. I used some basic programming steps, and when the shower light state changed to OFF there was a 25 minute delay programmed in after which the fan went off.It worked great for the most part, and it assured that you can never forget to turn the fan on when you get in the shower, which keeps the bathroom from getting mildewy. The only problem was if the shower light gets turned off inadvertently before it was intended to be turned off. In that case, the fan switch remains stuck in the loop for 25 minutes and will then turn the fan off, even if someone is still in the shower (which could be fixed with an IF check), or just finished their shower (harder to fix).I'm hopeful that at some point Control4 will handle this is a different way, ideally by letting me set a TIME (hh:mm) for something to happen without putting me in a delay loop. But in the mean time, I had my dealer program a loop and I'm handling it as follows. It's working perfectly now, and can address any non-standard situation like someone manually turning off the light or the fan, and wanting to start it up again. So I'm curious whether there's a better way to handle this that wouldn't have required the loop.By the way, the red/yellow LED is just a visual indicator of whether the fan is in its 25 minute countdown mode or not.First, here's what's programmed on the shower light:http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/6173/c41jl5.jpgNext, here's the programming for the variable (this is the only loop):http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/7678/c42yo2.jpgThen, to limit even a manual turn-on of the fan to 2 hours:http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1189/c43zi2.jpgand finally to clean things up if the fan is manually turned off:http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/4074/c44cn3.jpgI'd initially thought I could get around the loop by the fact that when the variable decremented, it would be a change that would then trigger the "When Variable Changes" action again, but it did not work that way. I think I could still get around it by not decrementing the variable in the programming for the variable, but instead toggling a second variable, whose only function is that when it changes it decrements the FanTime variable. That would then cause the "When FanTime variable changes" action to be triggered again, and the program would basically bounce back and forth between those two until the FanTime was down to zero.Wheww, sorry for the long post, but this one was bugging me for awhile and I'd love to know if there's a cleaner way other have done it. Thanks!--Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 The problem here is you need switches on both of those items PLUS the keypad. They really need to release a three button and six button keypad that can control a load, or better yet...two or three loads. That would be *so* cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CFUG Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Basic Q here- where the heck is the "while" command? I only see "if" under conditionals... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maniac36 Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Thanks for the quick response. My overall goal is to have button 1 turn on and off lights' date=' button 2 cortrol the fan, and button 3 turn on and off distributed audio in the bathroom. Is this logical thinking? Is there anything else that I should be considering for the bathroom? Maybe a 6 button so I can control volume as well as some future device?Thanks Jesse[/quote']Those are all great ideas and very doable. The 6 button would be a nice upgrade if you want to control the volume.You need a switch/dimmer for the light and a switch for the fan to control the load, then you can have the 3/6 button to program off of! You can't just have 3/6 button controlling the load.Sorry, ILoveC4 beat me to it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Basic Q here- where the heck is the "while" command? I only see "if" under conditionals...It's one of the few differences between Pro and Home edition of Composer. My dealer added it in (it's called a "loop") but once he added it in I was (as I recall) able to add things to it. I just can't add or create a loop.I've written elsewhere on how you can use a pair of variables to do almost anything you might otherwise do with a loop. With the advent of timers, I think loops are even less critical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 The problem here is you need switches on both of those items PLUS the keypad. They really need to release a three button and six button keypad that can control a load, or better yet...two or three loads. That would be *so* cool.This is, far and away, my most desired C4 hardware wish-list. I started a thread about it here:http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?pid=6665#p6665And it's not only that it would be awesome to enhance an existing system, but it would make retrofitting in a house soooooo much easier. Instead of having to tear into drywall, you could replace all the switches with C4 switches, some of which would include keypads.Please please please . . . :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 I have to think this is in development. While I am no engineer, it does seem like it would be fairly easy to do. At least to control one load. Controlling two loads may be more difficult, but would sure be sweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tebery Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 jbs,do you led's still give you reliable status with the polling BS?anyone know if the polling will go away since the lawsuit has been settled?thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LilHessy Posted March 5, 2009 Author Share Posted March 5, 2009 Knowing that I can not control the load with the keypad I am not sure what I should do. It is a small bathroom and wouldn't make sense to have a switch and a keypad in there just so I could do a timer. Is it possible to do a timer off of the switches? That way when the fan is turned off at the switch it will still run for 20 minutes? I am looking at Panasonic fans and I see that they do offer models that have built in motion sensors and timers. The thing that I am not to fond of is always having the fan running on low speed. With a fan like that do you not need a swith because of the built in motion sensor switching between high and low speeds?Thanks Jesse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 ^^You sure can, that is how mine are. I have mine setup so when you turn them on the LED lights up green, and it trigger a ten minute timer. If you want to adjust the timer to 30 minutes, just hold the top button down for two seconds. The LED then changes to red and it triggers the longer timer. Someone who knows what they are doing can pretty much do whatever you want. You can perform different actions for double tap, triple, quad tap, the sky is the limit my friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 jbs,do you led's still give you reliable status with the polling BS?anyone know if the polling will go away since the lawsuit has been settled?thanksyes they seem reliable, this is not an area where I've had polling-related trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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