In-wall rotary 0-10V potentiometer dimmer switch + RGBW module

[flux_capacitor 1]

 

I already read

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 dealing with classical in-wall rotary dimmers and the Fibaro dimmer2 module, but I think the following combination would work better. Your advice would be very much appreciated.

 

The RGBW dimmer (FGRGB-101 / FGRGBWM-441) accepts 0-10V analog voltage input to control 12/24V DC low voltage lamps (LEDs or halogens):

 

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1/ Can a cost-effective classical 0-10V rotary dimmer pilot the RGBW module which would then dim the lights accordingly to the input rotation? Like this one for example:

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2/ If it works that way, how would the knob rotation of the 0-10V potentiometer behave with the direct control of the RGBW module from the Fibaro interface on a computer or mobile device? Suppose you have turned the potentiometer half the way to dim the lights up to 50%. Then you open the Fibaro app and switch off the lights. Do the lights switch off? If they are switched off, the potentiometer is still at 50%… What would happen then when you turn the potentiometer again?

 

3/ To prevent this apparent weird behavior, I looked for 360-degree (i.e. continuous rotation with no stop) optical or Hall effect absolute rotary encoders with 0-10V analog output, as a replacement for classical potentiometers:

 

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But in this case while the voltage varies linearly according to shaft rotation from 0V/0° to 10V/359° (1 turn) it also suddenly drops to zero at the beginning of the second turn (the voltage drops from max. 10V at 359° to 0V at 360°, just one degree further) like this:

This graph is for 0-5V but 0-10V acts the same way.

 

Not very handy for lights. It would have been more useful if the voltage stayed at maximum value of 10V after 360°.

 

4/ I then searched for incremental rotary encoders instead of absolute rotary encoders, but it seems an incremental version with 0-10V analog voltage output doesn't exist. 

 

Your thoughts?

 

 

Edited October 27, 2016 by flux_capacitor
Links on images + Tags added

[flux_capacitor 1]

Guys, did you manage to make it work? I jumped in too, here are my comments:

 

I bought a

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, a 20K resistor and a 12V DC power supply, and soldered the circuit as recommended. I even wirelessly associated the RGBW controller with a Fibaro Dimmer 2 module (you just have to enter the node number of the Dimmer to the group of the RGBW controller in the settings of your Z-wave controller, then the Dimmer 2 module acts as a slave of the RGBW controller, hence the slave of the potentiometer).

 

So I have from one side a 12VDC RGBW module controlled by a rotary pot, and the other side 240VAC lights controlled by a Dimmer 2. And actually thanks to Z-Wave association, the lights are controlled by the pot. Perfect.

 

Problem: With an analog 0-10V input controlling the RGBW module, the minium dimming level output can't go below 2 (available range: 2-255, parameter 13 in settings). So when the pot is completely turned CCW to zero, the lights although dimmed are still on. Unbelievable but Fibaro prevents the lights to switch off completely when using an analog 0-10V input! Any solution?

 

At first I thought about a pot with a CCW switch, but it would be catastrophic because when this kind of pot is switch-off, it is disconnected and would act as if it was replaced by an infinite resistance in our circuit, setting the lights brightness at 100%.

[morpheus75 76]

On 11/4/2016 at 9:31 PM, morpheus75 said:

the manual was great thanks but it only sent on/off commands and not the colour commands like i wanted but i tried something else and that worked a treat.

i connected all 3 modules to the 1 power supply unit and then connected IN1 to IN4 all together in parallel, ie sending the same voltage level to each module.

this then effectively syncronised all 3 of the modules without the use of scenes and/or associations.

the only thing now i need to do is get a 12v 15a power supply, as i was using 3 of 12v 5a supplies.

 

 

an update to this.

the rotary switch worked great on 1 module but as i then added 3 modules the system thats when things didnt go the way i wanted them to. on the higher voltage range the modules were in sync but on the lower voltage ranges they were not. probably due to voltage drop issues.

i couldnt sync the modules as that can only be done in RGB/RGBW mode and not in the IN/OUT mode so in the end scrapped the idea and gonna use noDon switch or similar and pre-programme the LUA to each button.

 

[robmac 173]

If it works on one why not stick with it and try the new sync method on the latest beta firmware or lua code?

[morpheus75 76]

hi

i tried looking at the LUA code to find any triggering properties and there were none using the IN/OUT method. Im currently on firmware 4.090.

when i switched back to RGBW mode the triggers worked.

Its a bit too late now as the kitchen has now been fully plastered and installed. The plan was to have the 4 rotary switches on the wall mounted under the light switches.

I needed 3 x 5m strip lights to cover the ceiling area.  I will use this method elsewhere in the house when i only have 1 x 5m so all is not lost as i have the variable pot aswell as the rotary switch all wired up and ready.