Do you have a friendly sparky or own a multimeter, as you could measure the output of the Dimmer WITHOUT the load connected.
See what it does as you dim from 100%, to 70%, to 20% etc.
It doesn’t sound right what Aeotec have said with regards to the LED Driver you posted.
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I am guessing where the Aeotec manual states "Direct Current LED Bulbs (VDC)" they mean the Constant Current LED bulbs they talk about here. If so then looking at the transformer it does match the format variable VDC (20-24) with a constant current (500mA). That would definitely support the fac tthey only support on/off and not dimming. How in the world a "normal" user is ever supposed to work that out though is completely beyond me.
I do have a multimeter but I don't have anything that can dim the light. Looking around I'd be looking at £15-20 ($20-25) just to buy a unit to experiment with. To be frank on the light in question I'm not MASSIVELY bothered as it's fairly dim anyway. It would certainly be a nice to have but I'm not too bothered. I might swop it out for a relay though and use it in another light fitting which can benefit from it.
G
The article you posted above is for Non-dimmable LED.
@njanda meant for you to measure the load of your nano dimmer.
Thanks for the reply.
Actually you're incorrect. Constant current and constant voltage LED's can also be dimmable. If you look in the sales section of that site they sell both types and they sell both dimmable and non dimmable types. That article may not mention dimmable but neither technology dictates whether something is dimmable or not.
Also just clarified it with Aeotec. They state the nano dimmer will not dim ANY DC bulbs at all as the nano is only designed to dim AC bulbs. So I'm still trying to understand from them why but effectively they are stating that regardless of whether the bulbs are dimmable or not if they are DC fed, they will not dim.
Personally I find it hard to understand how that can be the case as the dimmer is only connected to the 240v (UK) supply side and outputs the load to the transformer so it never sees the DC from the transformer. As the dimmer supports trailing and leading edge and theres only so much else you can do with the supply side (frequency is fixed so current and voltage could possibly be variable) I just don't understand how the type of bulb on the other side of the transformer can make a difference.
Lets see what Aeotec come back with.
Thanks all
G
I think your logic is sound.
The LED driver (it’s not actually a transformer) is what gets connected to the Nano Dimmer and therefore is an AC load, able to accept leading edge or trailing edge AC.
Very strange.
Tty the Nano Dimmer on a standard light fitting and bulb and prove it actually is working ?
OK.
I was right.
On another forum I asked the same question and we finally got to the bottom of it.
On the nano there are three parameters relating to the dimming, 131, 132 and 249.
131 sets the low dimming limit
132 sets the high dimming limit
249 sets the autodetect on or off
The idea is 249 is tested every time the light is turned on. This then in turn sets 131 and 132 to values based on that discovery. On my dimmer, 131 was set to 34 and 132 was set to 46.
When I set 131 to 1 and 132 to 100 everything now works as intended except I can't get 132 to set higher than 46.
Now the strange part is I can manually set the dimming to say 70 and I get less light than at 100 (which you would expect) however the light doesn't come on at all if I go below 34. So my guess is theres something wrong with the logic on the auto detect part. The 34 value is clearly "right" in that it should be the lower threshold value but I don't know where it's getting the 46 from or why when I manually set it to 70 I get it dimming. 34 seems to be right but 46 doesn't and not only that I can't understand how I can't get above 46 at all.
Two things to note though. First Aeotec customer support don't have the first clue what they're talking about and secondly I really should look at the parameters more closely as I thought I'd been through every single parameter.
G
I have noticed that I want the Low Dimming Limit and The High Dimming Limit Set correctly to get the best performance out of my Nano Dimmers. If my low Dimming limit is too low, I will get a strobe effect when the light first turns on or dims off. If it is too low the lights won't dim as low as the dimmer is capable of. If the High Dimming limit is too, low the dimmer won't get the lights as bright at it should be. So I set the low dimming limit where a level of 1 will give me visible light.
I started porting over the device handler for these to Hubitat and have one that is working for me as well as creates a child RGB device for my Wall Swipe so I can change its color with alerts or turn it off in my TV Room when the projector screen comes down. I would like to add the standard Hubitat Methods (Start Level Change, Flash, etc)
At this point it is working well for What I need it to do, but not really tested beyond that.
This is great work!
Minor thing, the firmware version is not working for me, it shows null. If I use the basic z-wave tool to pull the version it shows correctly as:
dev:2442019-01-30 14:47:07.074 infoVersionReport- applicationVersion:2.2
dev:2442019-01-30 14:47:07.073 infoVersionReport- zWaveProtocolVersion:4.54
dev:2442019-01-30 14:47:07.072 infoVersionReport- zWaveLibraryType:Enhanced Slave
Also the data sheet shows parameter 3 is over current shutdown, any chance you could expose this as well at the overheat switch of param 4?
Switch paramater 4 should have already been there. I just exposed param 3. and updated the method for getting firmware since firmwareupdatemdv2.FirmwareMdReport isn't supported yet on Hubitat. Also added startlevelchange and stoplevelchange.
im getting a flash when the lights go on and off controlled by my ML rule. ive gone back to the aeon micro dimmer DH for now.
It looks like this is because it overwrites the autodetected mindimlevel and maxdimlevel. They are being overwritten to 0 and 99 when you install this dh. I manually set the mindimlevel and maxdimlevel of each of my switches because I get a wider dimming range than what the nano dimmer tends to set with autoadjust. I can dim my LED bulbs to a lower level and can raise my halogen bulbs to a brighter level than what the autoadjust gives me. I will look at how to update to allow for the autoadjust and still expose those two settings. In the meantime only use this if you are willing to manually set your mindimlevel and maxdimlevel.
is there a procedure to set the min and max? unsure how to proceed, thanks.
Nothing official, but here is what I do:
Starting with the Min dim setting at 1 and the Max at 99. First I locate what my max dim setting should be by finding the maximum dim level ( by adjusting the dimmer) that meets all of the following:
- It is brighter and uses more power than a lower number. (i.e. if 80 and 85 use the same wattage and have no discernible difference in brightness I will use 80. I have some LED bulbs that don't get any brighter or use any more power after 50.
- No weird annoying flickering. Some of my lights have a harsh flickering above a certain number.
- Under 150 watts ( I have a couple fixtures with too high a wattage and I just set my maximum dim level to stay under the 150 watt maximum.
I don't actually set the maximum dim level yet, I just note it as it transfers better if you haven't set the minimum dim level. Because otherwise the the dimmer level represents your position in the range between maximum and minimum.
Now I start setting my min dim level. If you have what the dimmer auto detected, you can start there but it is probably too high.
I keep adjusting my minimum dim level until I see the following:
- Light is being output from my lights at 1% (barely).
- It is less light than at a little higher say 5%.
- There is no weird flashing when the lights are turned off or on.
I also now put in the MaximumDimlevel from earlier and verify that everything is as as I want it. Sometimes I have to tweak and make a small 1 or 2 % change in the max or min dim level.
I set option 249 to Off. (This technically isn't necessary because of how this dh was written that if the config option is changed on the device "autodetected", it will be overwritten with the configuration you set in hubitat, but I should probably figure out how to change it so that changes from autodetection if turned on update your config levels, so as a future proof setting turn 249 to off if manually adjusting).
This is a bit of a pain, but it is easier than it sounds and it has helped me with the following 3 situations:
-
Some halogen lights I tested last night were being autoadjusted to 20% min 50% max. My settings from the manual process above are 15%-82%. The lights put out adequate light with manual where before we were talking about replacing them with something brighter.
-
I have a few LED lights that I would not use in overnight (someone up to use bathroom) lighting because they would not dim far enough down. Once I lowered the minimum dim level they are performing great.
-
I had a light that basically 60-100% was full brightness. by adjusting the maximum dim level to 60%, now I had a much more meaningful dimming range. After adjusting 99 is 60, 90 is 54, etc.
Does that make sense?
For Reference: Adjusting dimming ranges and rate of dim speed with Nano Dimmer. : Aeotec Help Desk
I have used a similar process to set the dim levels on the Qubino dimmers.
Thanks,
Erik
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