Driver to accomplish color changes on pool lights (hubduino relays)

brianwilson · June 20, 2019, 5:39pm

Looking for advice on how to accomplish this.

I have a Hubduino device - Linknode R8 - essentially 8 relays that appear as 2-way switches. 4 of those switches control my pool pump speeds, and I'd like to use the 5th switch to control my pool lights. The pool lights work as below:

So instead of just turning the lights on/off, I'd like to be able to control the colors without having to perform the on/off sequences manually. So either a color picker or buttons per color (red/green/blue, etc).

So, how would you tackle this?

I don't really see a good way to have a single driver that supports the 8 different color modes unless I try to mimic the color bulb capabilities. Even then, I'd have to be able to translate the selection on the color picker to a color then perform that many on/off sequences.

The other option I see would be to edit the Hubduino Switch driver, perhaps use the Hubduino RGBW driver as a semi-template or the regular switch driver as a template, then update the esp code to send switch 5 to this new driver that would either mimic color picker or have custom commands to turn colors on/off.

Any guidance on the best way to do this?

TIA!

mike.maxwell · June 20, 2019, 7:50pm

Probably what you want here is LightEffects
https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=Driver_Capability_List#LightEffects

brianwilson · June 20, 2019, 8:52pm

Thank you! If you know of any examples of this, please send them my way.

Ryan780 · June 21, 2019, 4:57am

So, I'm confused. What type of input does the controller for your lights take? Is there a switch? How are you going to connect the Linknode to the light controller.

Once you get past that, it would be fairly easy to set up the channel on the Linknode to be a "timed realy". Look for that library in Hubduino. It will allow you specify the amount of time the relay should be on before turning off. So, that you can switch between modes.

I'm still concerned how you are going to hook this up thought....

brianwilson · June 21, 2019, 11:26am

It’s 12v running out of my pool controller box. I’m going to splice one leg of the power running to the lights and send that through a relay. Closing the relay should power on the lights.

Ryan780 · June 21, 2019, 9:47pm

And the mode is changed by turning off and back on?

brianwilson · June 21, 2019, 10:09pm

Yep.

Ryan780 · June 21, 2019, 10:10pm

So, are you going to have your relay before or after the controller? What I'm thinking is you might not be able to control what mode they are in remotely. Also, you might not want to leave the controller powered 24/7 if your relay will be in the power going out to the lights.

brianwilson · June 21, 2019, 10:23pm

There isn’t a light controller. The controller is basic power and a wired remote to turn on/off. It’s not a real pool controller. The only thing that powers the lights is 12v. Remote adjusts light colors by doing on/off. I’m bypassing remote for this to do controlling

Ryan780 · June 21, 2019, 10:28pm

Oh, the control is all in the lamps then. I gotcha.

brad2 · September 13, 2019, 6:23pm

Do you have the Intellibrite controller with your system? If so, this is a good place to start for full contorl - GitHub - tagyoureit/nodejs-poolController: An application to control pool equipment from various manufacturers. and I am working to port work I did on SmartThings over to Hubitat to be able to interface with all of this.

brianwilson · September 14, 2019, 8:42pm

Thanks. This is what I ended up doing. Thanks for reminding me to document what I did before I completely forgot. Many thanks to @ogiewon for his great work on Hubduino!

Arduino Pool Controller via ST_Anything & Hubduino.