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Christmas Lights with a Twist


Nuttycomputer

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Merry Christmas and Holidays to everyone! A friend of mine stayed over recently and saw I was using home automation to turn on/off my lights this year. Both inside and outside. He thought it was cool but boring and suggested the following idea which I then put into the following two programs. May not be an original idea completely but I had some fun with it see if anyone knows why:

 

Edited to include the entire two programs. To initiate them I used a very basic 3rd program that started them at night and stopped them in the morning.

 

Merry.Morse

If
  - No Conditions - (To add one, press 'Schedule' or 'Condition')

Then
       Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
       Wait  5 seconds
       Repeat 1 times
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
       Repeat 1 times
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
       Repeat 2 times
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
       Repeat 1 times
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' Off
       Repeat 1 times
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Outlet' On
          Wait  15 seconds
          Run Program 'Merry.Morse' (Then Path)

Else
  - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')

Merry
-- . .-. .-. -.--

 

X-Mas.Morse

If
  - No Conditions - (To add one, press 'Schedule' or 'Condition')

Then
       Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
       Wait  5 seconds
       Repeat 1 times
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
       Repeat 1 times
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
       Repeat 4 times
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
       Repeat 1 times
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
       Repeat 1 times
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
       Repeat 1 times
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  3 seconds
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
       Repeat 1 times
          Wait  1 second
       Repeat 3 times
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  1 second
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' Off
       Repeat 1 times
          Set 'Outside - Garage / Outside Appliancelinc' On
          Wait  15 seconds
          Run Program 'X-Mas.Morse' (Then Path)

Else
  - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')

X-Mas
-..- -....- -- .- ...

 

Have a good one and feel free to copy and add your own devices in.

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Got a video :mrgreen:

 

I've been trying to track down master light show, which uses Insteon to control lights to music. JLTsoft.com went away.

 

Been looking a little at light-o-rama too, but you can sink a fortune bigger than a whole house insteon system, in to a few things!

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Sorry no video - Though that might give a better representation of what I was achieving with these programs. ;) Wizard, sounds like you probably got it :D In some areas I used functions of the ISY simply to lesson my confusion, readability, and time even when they provided no actual changes. For example the Repeat 1's back to back.

 

arw01 - As far as I know looking into light shows w/ music Insteon simply isn't fast or accurate enough compared to a controller/architecture designed for that purpose. For example my programs above - I ran it only on Christmas Eve and Christmas Night. Otherwise even the 1 second waits with both programs running seems to keep the ISY very busy. Trying to sync all that with music and a few more devices would be out of the question I would imagine. Plus the time required compared to some of the software I've seen specific for light shows.

 

I to will give the rest of the day for others to take a look at it. Then I'll probably edit my original post to include the comments field :D

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Hello Brian,

Do you know how that device was able to accomplish 20 commands per second?

Even with 0 hops and good communications I am wondering how they did that?

 

I have tried for a "fastest communications" rate a couple of times in the past without such speed success.

If I remember correctly I was lucky to get about 3 commands/sec even when devices were right next to each other and 0 hops.

 

Do you know what command structure was used in that device? If it were direct with 0 hops you would still have the ack command.

If it were group broadcast there would be a cleanup message?

 

Is there a command structure that can be used that would send only the 50msec standard message length hop 0 and cause no other response traffic?

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ELA

 

I think he used the same technique the ISY uses for Scenes. Issues a Group Broadcast directly rather than issuing a Serial Scene command to the PLM. There are no ACks and no Group Cleanup Directs so things go as fast as the PLM will write the messages to the powerline. Did need a good powerline with no ACKs and no Group Cleanup Direct.

 

There was some change, maybe with the PLM firmware (just too long ago to be sure) that was going to reduce the throughput making it impossible to create the more complex lighting sequences

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Hi leeG,

I did not understand your comment about issuing group broadcast commands directly?

I thought that a group broadcast command was automatically followed by cleanup message?

Can you please cite the command format you are referring to?

 

I did look through some old public domain Insteon command listings that hinted that old legacyv2 devices might have supported group broadcast commands without follow up cleanup message?

 

That made me wonder if device changes over the years might have caused this light show program to then become less desirable due to speed limitations?

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ELA

 

Turn On the Event Trace and issue a Scene On or Scene Off through the Admin Console. That will provide an example. It is the standard Group Broadcast message, just sent with 02 62.

 

A Scene Serial command (02 61) issues the Group Broadcast and then follows up with Group Cleanup Directs for each Scene Responder. The individual messages, Group Broadcast and Group Cleanup Direct, can be issued by the application rather than issuing the Serial Scene On/Off to have it done automatically. The ISY is not the only application to issue the individual Scene messages directly. Powerhome has macro (like a Program) commands for issuing either message type directly.

 

Sorry for the slow response. I lost my email alerts to new postings when the forum was moved to the new provider.

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Thank you LeeG,

 

I had tried the group broadcast direct previously but it appears I was putting the group number in the incorrect position.

After monitoring the ISY I got it to work just as you said it would.

 

Very cool ...

Using the Fast ON and Fast OFF commands I was able to get it to run with only 50msec between sends and it appears to keep up pretty well visually and and with no naks from the PLM!

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Updated the original post to include the full programs with comments :D

 

It was in essence a morse code program. The first program controlled the lights on the Left side of my house while the second program controlled the lights on the right side of my house. Unfortunately it must be a dying art as my neighbors just seemed to think it was cool that they would flash "randomly"

 

73s to you all and hope you have a good new year coming up.

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