Legrand Discontinues the ALC and PLC Lighting Systems!

[myyaz33]

all this would explain why the Onq ALC online training available through SETNET has been unavailable for the last week or so. Any chance this will exist again?

 

[TonyStewart]

Hmm... I hope Tony will make an appearance in here and provide a bit more info. One thing I just found out which DOES disturb me a little is that the ALC switches at SetNet are close to 50% more expensive than they used to be. Dimmers are showing as $150 and regular switches around $130. I'm sure that these prices are MUCH higher than they used to be and a quick Google seems to confirm that as I can find ALC switches elsewhere for ~$85 for regular switches and ~$95 for dimmers.

Type of wire is not what makes it proprietary. It's more a factor of can you replace any lighting system with conventional light switches later? If not, then the system is proprietary. ALC is not proprietary and will even work when a controller is down (or not used at all) when light switches are remoted to a coat closet to reduce wall cluter as long as a quad aux is used in their place.

I can provide the names of a number of home owners whose homes were wired proprietarily and as such can't sell their homes and/or had to take a serious loss to sell them.

TS

 

[TonyStewart]

all this would explain why the Onq ALC online training available through SETNET has been unavailable for the last week or so. Any chance this will exist again?

You are right. On the list of priorities is a nice web and DVD based offering of training AND tech support.

Can't say when, but it is something we can do pretty fast.

 

[beelzerob]

Like I mentioned earlier, the original Engineers are nearby. In addition we now own all the test equipment and test jigs along with all developers tools. Our hands on experience is pretty extensive as well. But, none of us have any experience with CQC. I would love to learn more. Will they send us what is needed to merge the two systems together?
Help me get our hands on a sample CQC system and I promise to dig in deep.

Oh...well, that's already done. I've already written a CQC driver for ALC. Tom Cunningham @ OnqLegrand (dunno if you heard of him or not) helped me out in mid-08 to get the parts I needed, and there's been a fully working CQC driver ever since. The only problem I'm having is there's just one command that I cannot get to work right, and the RS232 protocol doc is just vague enough that I could use some help figuring it out. All I REALLY need is just for an example set of bytes to make the Extended Ramp Rate command work....that should be enough to resolve the ambiguities in the doc, and for me to figure out the rest.

But otherwise, there is already quite a good synergy between ALC and CQC, I'd say....and I'd hope the others using the system would say too. -_-

Anyway, it's a minor gripe....the normal ramp rate, dim level, preset level, etc all work just fine...but it'd be nice to be able to set the extended ramp rate too.

 

[sic0048]

I'm going to send Tony an email. I live about 10 miles from his facility and could provide CQC assistance if needed. Either by letting him come and see my system, or trying to get him a demo system running at his facility. With my assistance, I'm sure he could catch on pretty quickly with how CQC works.

EDIT - what I really meant was that with an experienced CQC user, the startup time can surely be cut dramatically. I'm not trying to suggest that I am some super CQC icon or anything like that. My original post sounds a little egotistical.

 

[jmark71]

Hmm... I hope Tony will make an appearance in here and provide a bit more info. One thing I just found out which DOES disturb me a little is that the ALC switches at SetNet are close to 50% more expensive than they used to be. Dimmers are showing as $150 and regular switches around $130. I'm sure that these prices are MUCH higher than they used to be and a quick Google seems to confirm that as I can find ALC switches elsewhere for ~$85 for regular switches and ~$95 for dimmers.

For those of you who have been active in this forum or any of the previous ones, We will price protect you. Call me or Anthony and provide your user name and we will help you as best we can. Can't promise this to everyone and the amount we can help out does have some restrictions, but if you have made an entry on Coccontech, we will help you out. That means all of you, even those who have not been a fan of us or ALC.

If you already have good supplier like automated outlet, then I will pass along the savings to them. This will take a little more administration, but we don't want to take any business away from another supplier.

Merry Christmas from the Stewarts

That's a bumper Christmas present Tony! I'll be going through the house in the new year to figure out what I'm missing, but will definitely be filling in the gaps. Merry Christmas back at ya!

 

[Spanky]

When you absolutely, positively have to have your lighting system work when you turn on a switch, use ALC lighting. Elk realized the reliability of the ALC lighting system when the ELK M1 first became available. I recall that it was the 2nd lighting system that was supported by the M1.

Tony you have our full support in making Genesis13 a great manufacturer of the ALC lighting product. The ALC product line is too good to let it die, so my hat is off to you in picking up the ball and running with it.

Best of luck and let me know how we can help.



FYI: I am now extremely excited about moving back into the engineering group at ELK. I ran ELK for 9 months during the dark ages of 2009. ELK has a new president, Joel Rosson, who joined the ELK team in September. Product development is moving forward, so look for new toys.

 

[klindy]

Hmm... I hope Tony will make an appearance in here and provide a bit more info. One thing I just found out which DOES disturb me a little is that the ALC switches at SetNet are close to 50% more expensive than they used to be. Dimmers are showing as $150 and regular switches around $130. I'm sure that these prices are MUCH higher than they used to be and a quick Google seems to confirm that as I can find ALC switches elsewhere for ~$85 for regular switches and ~$95 for dimmers.

For those of you who have been active in this forum or any of the previous ones, We will price protect you. Call me or Anthony and provide your user name and we will help you as best we can. Can't promise this to everyone and the amount we can help out does have some restrictions, but if you have made an entry on Coccontech, we will help you out. That means all of you, even those who have not been a fan of us or ALC.

If you already have good supplier like automated outlet, then I will pass along the savings to them. This will take a little more administration, but we don't want to take any business away from another supplier.

Merry Christmas from the Stewarts

Thanks Tony! I'll get my parts list together. Since I'm 15 minutes from AO I may work through them for some of the parts too.

Keith

 

[TonyStewart]

Hmm... I hope Tony will make an appearance in here and provide a bit more info. One thing I just found out which DOES disturb me a little is that the ALC switches at SetNet are close to 50% more expensive than they used to be. Dimmers are showing as $150 and regular switches around $130. I'm sure that these prices are MUCH higher than they used to be and a quick Google seems to confirm that as I can find ALC switches elsewhere for ~$85 for regular switches and ~$95 for dimmers.

For those of you who have been active in this forum or any of the previous ones, We will price protect you. Call me or Anthony and provide your user name and we will help you as best we can. Can't promise this to everyone and the amount we can help out does have some restrictions, but if you have made an entry on Coccontech, we will help you out. That means all of you, even those who have not been a fan of us or ALC.

If you already have good supplier like automated outlet, then I will pass along the savings to them. This will take a little more administration, but we don't want to take any business away from another supplier.

Merry Christmas from the Stewarts

Thanks Tony! I'll get my parts list together. Since I'm 15 minutes from AO I may work through them for some of the parts too.

Keith

Excellent - Love to work with AO

 

[TonyStewart]

I'm going to send Tony an email. I live about 10 miles from his facility and could provide CQC assistance if needed. Either by letting him come and see my system, or trying to get him a demo system running at his facility. With my assistance, I'm sure he could catch on pretty quickly with how CQC works.

EDIT - what I really meant was that with an experienced CQC user, the startup time can surely be cut dramatically. I'm not trying to suggest that I am some super CQC icon or anything like that. My original post sounds a little egotistical.

We are excited about CQC and appreciate the offer. We have a lot to learn in that area.

TS

 

[beelzerob]

I hope you guys do get much more integrated and involved with CQC, it'd be great. But I do want to clarify that my issue I'm having is completely independant of CQC...it is a very basic question of how does anything using the RS232 protocol of ALC, change the extended ramp rate. I'd think any of the ALC engineers would know this, or be able to give me the bytes needed to make it happen as an example.

 

[TonyStewart]

I hope you guys do get much more integrated and involved with CQC, it'd be great. But I do want to clarify that my issue I'm having is completely independant of CQC...it is a very basic question of how does anything using the RS232 protocol of ALC, change the extended ramp rate. I'd think any of the ALC engineers would know this, or be able to give me the bytes needed to make it happen as an example.

I will dig into this myself, and get back to you. It will probably be after turn of the year.

 

[beelzerob]

Awesome! Turn of the year would still be sooner than I ever heard back from OnQ support.

To make it as simple as possible, the question is this:

What bytes would need to be sent out the serial port to set the extended ramp rate to 2 hours (for some light on some branch)?

That should answer my format question. Thanks!

 

[wlj]

What bytes would need to be sent out the serial port to set the extended ramp rate to 2 hours (for some light on some branch)?

Rob,

I've found the On-Q SceneTech software package to be invaluable for clarifying ambiguities in the ALC protocol documentation, as well as for general troubleshooting and sanity checking that things work OK. One of the modules in SceneTech is for sending crafted messages to an ALC device.

According to SceneTech, the bytes to set the extended ramp rate to 2 hours for branch 1, address 1 are:

81 35 12 18 00 20

See the attached screen shot for details.

Hope this helps,
-Bill

 

[wlj]

For those of you who have been active in this forum or any of the previous ones, We will price protect you. Call me or Anthony and provide your user name and we will help you as best we can. Can't promise this to everyone and the amount we can help out does have some restrictions, but if you have made an entry on Coccontech, we will help you out. That means all of you, even those who have not been a fan of us or ALC.

If you already have good supplier like automated outlet, then I will pass along the savings to them. This will take a little more administration, but we don't want to take any business away from another supplier.

Merry Christmas from the Stewarts

Tony,

I've been a longtime fan, user, and (small scale) installer of ALC. It saved me from the never ending misery of X-10 PLC, and replaced it with a technology that "just worked" at a reasonable price point. I also had very positive experiences interacting with Dale Rupert and Gary Axe years ago in debugging a few SLC firmware issues that really sold me on the professionalism and support behind the product line. Reading Legrand's 'abandoning ALC' message left me with a knot in my stomach. Your postings here have been encouraging and I look forward to seeing the advancements that you and Genesis 1:3 bring to ALC.

I also appreciate your 'price protection' offer. I've historically bought my ALC gear from Worthington Distribution. I'd love to see them added your 'good supplier' list.

Thanks, and Merry Christmas,
-Bill