Automating Hunter Douglas PowerRise 2.0 Shades

[kaisersoze]

I just installed battery powered Hunter Douglas PowerRise 2.0 (Platinum Technology) shades at my home. I searched the web for a way to integrate the shades with my ISY99i. The only off the shelf solutions I found were involved changing the motors (Somfy wireless motors or hard contact AC powered Hunter Douglas motors). One website (author Ryan Wright) detailed a jerry-rigged handheld Hunter Douglas remote. The end product appeared ugly and I initially dismissed the concept. But after careful thought, I was able to simplify the project into a more visually appealing product that I think more people would be willing to take on. Here's a photo of the final product:

 

 

This was my first DIY automation project. The technical expertise level for this project is "Novice." Supplies:

Extra PowerRise remote

EZIO8SA with PLM

ISY99i to control the finished product

Solder Gun

Very thin solder

Spare cat5 cable to harvest wires

Wire stripper

Small flathead screwdriver

Drill with 3/16" bit

Cat5/6 female plug

 

I included excerpts from Ryan Wright's guide as the initial steps are identical:

 

Buy an extra PowerRise remote and take it apart. There are no screws; these things are "press fit" together. Using a small flat head screwdriver, pry the remote in half. I found it easiest to start near the front next to the IR emitter. You're going to tear the plastic up a bit - don't worry about it. Do be careful not to damage the board or it's components when prying the shell apart.

 

 

Take out the circuit board (to avoid damaging it) and put the plastic casing back together so you can drill a hole at the bottom for the wires to come out (I used 3/16" drill bit, though you could probably go smaller for fewer wires or a tighter fit)

 

 

After drilling the exit hole, open the case again, and put the circuit board back in place

 

[...] the lower plastic piece [...] makes a nice base to hold the board while soldering to the buttons. Use your screwdriver to carefully scrape the black surface off some of the contacts. If you follow the traces on the board, you'll see that you need only 6 wires to actuate the 7 buttons. Solder six wires to the six copper spots on the board. Be careful not to overdo either the solder, the heat or the copper on the end of your wires: The black portion of the button grids are conductive so if you glob too much solder on, things won't work.

 

Another reason to use solder sparingly is so that the original push buttons will still work correctly.

 

 

I chose to use these 6 contacts in my pictures for simplicity: 3 cat5 twisted pair wires without untwisting them all. 7 relays are needed to replicate all the buttons on the remote.

 

Contacts | Function

3-5 | Group 1

1-2 | Group 2

4-5 | Group 3

3-2 | Group 4

4-6 | Group All

1-6 | Up

6-3 | Down

 

In retrospect (after finishing my own project), if you only want to integrate the "all up" and "all down" function of the remote and have no need to control the 4 groups separately, you only need 4 wires total (1,3,4,6) to trigger Group All then Up or Down.

 

After soldering the wires to the circuit board, mold the wires so the don't run over the original push button contacts

 

 

Snap the cover back on:

 

 

Test the original buttons to make sure they still work. If one button doesn't work, check to see if one of the soldered wires obstructing the contact. Connect the wires to the cat5 female plug. This will allow you do easily disconnect the remote for programming or routine use.

 

 

I used a cat5 cable and directly wired 6 wires to the EZIO8SA. The tricky part is figuring out which wires correspond with which contact, and which pairs of wires to connect to the relay (NO and CM). If you put the battery in the remote, you can test pairs of wires to see which buttons are activated with each wire pair. In order to use the remote, you have to push the group button first before the up/down button. A green light appears if you hit the group button, the green relights if you hit subsequently hit the up/down button. If you close 2 wires and it turns red, that is probably either up or down. If you close two wires and the light turns green, hit the up button on the remote and see which group of blinds goes up. Then use logic to identify what number each wire represents. I recommend you write down the wire colors on a scratch paper and when you identify the contact number, write it down on the scratch paper.

 

Once you've identified the wire pairs, time to run the wires into the EZIO8SA. Each relay essentially represents one button on the remote. Most wires will need to be used twice (#6 is used three times), I basically ran an accessory wire between relays to duplicate the connection. If you want to replicate all the buttons on the remote, you will need 7 relays (Up, Down, Group All, Group 1-4). If you only need the All Up and All Down functions, only 3 relays are needed (Group All, Up, Down).

 

 

I chose to keep the remote and EZIO8SA connected by a short cat5 cable so that the drain on the remote battery would be less. I placed the unit in the attic and I used a much longer cat5 cable to connect the EZIO8SA to the PLM in the most convenient outlet.

 

By default, the EZIO8SA relays are not momentary, they stay closed until they get another command to open the relay. Since I don't have a spare PLM to change the relays to momentary (using the SimpleHomeNet Utility), I had to create programs to operate the shades:

1. All Up - Group All On, wait 1 sec, Group All off, Up on, wait 1 sec, Up off, Clear Relays

2. All Down - Group All On, wait 1 sec, Group All off, Down on, wait 1 sec, Down off, Clear Relays

3. Clear Relays - Group 1 off, group 2 off, group 3 off, group 4 off, group all off, up off, down off

 

I created the Clear Relays program in case the EZIO8SA didn't receive the OFF command, so that the battery doesn't get drained by a closed relay.

 

All the buttons on the remote still work, including the reset and program buttons. The best way to program the remote is to have an existing remote and clone it (check the instructions provided with your extra handheld remote).

 

Future mini-projects:

-TriggerLincs to confirm closure of each shade group

-Buy additional PLM to use SimpleHomeNet Utility to set relays to momentary

-Weatherbug add-on for ISY99i to close shades based on temp (close shades in morning on hot summer days)

 

Hope this will help others looking to integrate their Hunter Douglas Power Rise 2.0 shades with their automation system.

[starmanj]

Wow just saw your hack, brilliant. I have the exact same hunter douglas power rises. However, my approach was different:

 

I installed a dry-contact interface to every shade and home-ran a wire pair into my basement from each window. From there, just hooked the wires into the EZIO8SA.

[kaisersoze]

Could you clarify what you mean by dry contact interface to each shade? I didn't know how to open the motor in the shade or where to attach the wires on the shades themselves.

 

I would prefer to hardwire the relays directly to the shades since one problem with using the remote is that the signal doesn't always reliably reach all the shades all the time. Also hardwiring the shades would allow more control over a potentially unlimited number of individual shades rather than being limited by 4 groups

[starmanj]

You buy one of these:

http://www.automatedshadestore.com/shop ... id448.html

It connects to the powerrise via connector. It has dry contacts for the EZIO. I just installed mine and works perfectly. Note you need one relay for up, another relay for down. This is a Hunter Douglas part.

Starmanj

[kaisersoze]

Thanks for the link! Looks like you'll need one for each shade or group (splicing wires) and can get a bit pricey if you have a lot of shades or groups. I might use it if I add an additional shade/group in the future, but I think I'll stick to using the remote for now. I like the outlet controlled RF adapter but it is also very pricey from a per group standpoint (http://www.automatedshadestore.com/shop ... id487.html)

[starmanj]

Right, I did one per group, and have 3 groups.