HAI OmniIIe with Lutron RA-RS232

[Hari_Seldon]

I am considering the following lighting control setup:

HAI Omni IIe + RadioRA

I would like to be able to turn on/off individual lights, report light status (on/off) and set scenes via the HAI system.

Can I use the RA-RS232 interface for RadioRA lighting control through HAI? Or do I need the more expensive Chronos unit? Also - can I simply use one of the built-in serial ports on the Omni IIe panel? Or do I need a serial expander?

Thanks.

 

[Brian Yokum]

The RA-RS232 will work fine, and you may use the built-in serial ports on the Omni IIe panel. When using the built-in ports you'll need to use the HAI 36A05-4 Serial Connectivity Adapter Kit.

 

[mtgoat]

Will a standard DB9 male to RJ45 (plus a RJ11 cable) adapter also work, or does the HAI 36A05-4 have a custom pinout?

 

[Brian Yokum]

I don't believe the "standard" DB9 male to RJ45 adapter will work.

 

[Hari_Seldon]

The RA-RS232 will work fine, and you may use the built-in serial ports on the Omni IIe panel. When using the built-in ports you'll need to use the HAI 36A05-4 Serial Connectivity Adapter Kit.

Thanks Brian! I did read that a RA-REP RF repeater unit is required to setup a new RA system.

A friend of mine is trying to use this very setup here in town. I am following his progress because I plan the same setup. He has so far been unable to control individual lights from HAI, only scenes. Are there any tricks to configuring the OmniIIe to be able to control the individual RA dimmers?

Thank you again for your help!

-HS

 

[Hari_Seldon]

I now have the system setup, but I can't figure out how to tell the OmniIIe that I have connected the RadioRa system to its serial port (J3). Can anyone point me to these specific instructions?

I have reviewed the OmniIIe manual and the PC Access manual but I can't find where it says how to define a OmniIIe serial port as a RadioRa RS232 interface. I have set the controller "House Codes" to "RadioRa", but I know this isn't enough.

Also - should I put the RA-RS232 interface in 'Handshaking mode'?

Thanks for any help.
-HS

 

[Brian Yokum]

Hari,

Under setup | installer | expansion set the serial port function for the serial port to "Radio RA". No handshaking is necessary.

 

[Hari_Seldon]

Hari,

Under setup | installer | expansion set the serial port function for the serial port to "Radio RA". No handshaking is necessary.

Thanks! I assume this option is only in the Dealer version of PC Access? I don't see it on my user PC Access, and I don't see the option on the keypad menu either.

Thanks,
HS

 

[Brian Yokum]

Hari,

Yes, this option is only available in the dealer version of PC Access. You need to use the installer code to access installer setup on the console.

 

[Hari_Seldon]

Hari,

Yes, this option is only available in the dealer version of PC Access. You need to use the installer code to access installer setup on the console.

A quick follow up - thanks to all for the help.

I now have dimmer control working. It was a pretty quick process with the Dealer version of PC Access, although I wasn't able to find specific documentation on how to set it up. Here are my notes:

Step 0 - Setup the RA-RS232 zones (assign each dimmer in your system to a zone #).

Step 1 - Configure the serial port as Brian describes above (Setup-> Expansion -> Serial). I set Serial 3 to 9600 baud, RadioRa.

Step 2 - Configure the Unit Names and House Code Formats (Setup->Units). I set up Units 1-32 to RadioRa House Code format (16 units per house code), and named each unit to correspond with the RadioRa zone (dimmer) numbers I had configured on the RA-RS232 unit. Example: Unit 1 => "Entry Light". Once I did this I was able to access and control the unit's (mapped to RadioRa dimmers) via the H@me iPhone app.

Step 3 - In order to get the native HAI All On and All Off commands to work, I added these two program blocks (this is noted in the Omni manual):

1.	WHEN AREA 1 ALL ON
			THEN RadioRA Phantom Button 16 ON
2.	WHEN AREA 1 ALL OFF
			THEN RadioRA Phantom Button 17 ON

From what I can tell the system seems to work, although I haven't tried to use Phantom Buttons or Scenes yet. Thanks again for everyone's help.

-HS