Months ago, I posted this thread about configuring Somfy Sonesse ST30 IWT motors with the HAI OmniPro II. As of today, I'm up and running with this setup! I'd like to share some key information that would have been immensely useful when I started this whole thing as my house was being built.
STEP1 - Prewire
While my drywall was down, I ended up wiring 14/2 (power) and CAT5 (for RS485) to each shade location. I also put an outlet and CAT5 to every sliding glass door for Glydea 35 automated drapes. All wires came back to a central closet into a large 50" structured wiring enclosure. Since I wanted my shades mounted on the inside of the window frame, they drilled holes through the top of the frame, 4" from the top left corner, about 1.5" from the back. You can see here:
You have quite a few options on where your wires can come out, so don't get too caught up with this. Just make sure not to have them come out where the shade makes contact on each side. There isn't any room there, as the shade goes in flush. The location I chose is just fine, but in retrospect, a more optimal location would have been 4.5" down from the top left corner, as it would have been a straight shot right into the motor. See here:
If I had to do it all again, I would have definitely used the 4 wire power/data stuff that they show in the wiring instructions. I can't emphasize this enough. I am automating 19 shades, and that is enough to fill your entire enclosure with a rats nest of wires. There is the argument for "future proofing" with new stuff that potentially needs CAT5, but let's be real; your investment is now with RS485, and a decade from now when you upgrade, wireless will be king. If you know you are going with Somfy IWT motors now, then wire efficiently for them. CAT5 is overkill because you only need 2 of the 8 wires for RS485. On the power side, 14/2 was definitely *way* too thick, so 16/2 is fine even for super long runs.
Another trick to reduce the amount of wires you need - daisy chaining. For example, If you have three windows in a row, you can daisy chain both power and data cables, and only run a single homerun back to your enclosure. Remember, RS485 is a bus. This means that when your OmniPro sends a command, it encodes the hardwired address of the motor in each command. This data gets sent everywhere on the bus, and it is up to the motor to say "hey that's my address" and react. All the other motors will receive the command on the RS485 bus, but will not respond since the command did not match their address. I'll describe more about this later. The disadvantage to chaining is that if you have a point of failure, it will be difficult to improvise. I bucket this into future proofing, and you need to weigh the tradeoff between having a clean install vs. less work if one of your wires fails.
STEP 1a - Getting Past Inspection
My contractor made a big deal about wires hanging out of the wall for inspection. Apparently inspectors don't like unterminated wires, even if they are low voltage / data. You have two options: Install the blinds before inspection, or cover them up in some tubing/boxing. I did the latter, because there were so many things to juggle while getting ready for the Certificate of Occupancy, I would have never found the time to buy and install the shades with so many unknowns. As you can see from the first picture, I used a tube with sticky tape, and connected it to a box with sticky tape. I used the box to roll up a few more inches of wiring, but this was completely unnecessary. Doing it again, I would just use about a foot of tube and call it a day.
STEP 2 - Buying Stuff
This is a list of things you'll need:
Step 3 - Installation & Programming
So you're ready to install all the thousands of dollars worth of equipment you just bought. Before you do anything, you'll need the address of your motors. This is a 6 digit number that is labeled in two or three places across the shaft of the motor. Make sure your shade manufacturer gives you this number with your shades! My manufacturer didn't, and so I needed to take apart the shade to get it. That was super annoying, but doable. Once you have your motor addresses, then you need to translate them through the Somfy ILT2 and ST30 RS485 Motor Configuration tool. This software wants a COM port, and most modern computers don't have one. That's where a USB to serial port adapter comes in handy. This will create a virtual port that the software can see, and when you connect to the COM port, you will gain access to the address translation tool. Here you check ST30, enter your motor address, hit Calc and out pops an ILT address. You need this because your OmniPro is preconfigured for Somfy ILT, and will require you to specify the address as an ILT address.
Once you have ILT addresses for your motors, you are ready to configure your OmniPro II. In PC Access (Pro), you need to configure one of the serial ports under Expansion > Serial as Somfy ILT. Remember to set as 4800 baud. Next, you need to setup some Units in PC Access that correspond to your shades. This consists of setting a block of units as type Somfy ILT, and then configuring each Unit with the name and address of the shade:
In the screen above, the address column is missing (consumer version). You need the pro version, and you enter the ILT address that you translated earlier. Once you are done, write your changes to the controller and get ready for physical setup.
Now you have to connect your OmniPro II and Power supply to the Somfy Power/Distribution panel. The power supply part is pretty straightforward, but the OP2 is tricky. The dist. panel has an RJ45 jack, and the OP2 a regular serial jack. Plus it's really confusing which wires are required, and which aren't. I ended up creating a custom wire with a CAT5 wire, shown below:
I won't get into the details and pinouts of each system. Just know that on the phone jack side, it is four prong and solid orange goes into the end slot, striped orange goes next to it. I can tell you for sure that if you replicate this cable, it will work
Once you've got your distribution panel powered up and connected, you can start wiring in your shades. This is pretty straightforward from the the wiring instructions, so I won't go into much detail. Once your shade is wired up, this is probably a good time to use the limit setting tool. You plug this bad boy into the four prong dry contact port of the ST30, and this will give you a remote control to move the shade up and down, and set it's limits. Details can be found at the end of the Sonesse 30 RS485 Installation Instructions. I personally did this for the first shade before I even mounted it, just to make sure it worked. I basically connected directly to the panel with an ad hoc constructed cable, and tested one while holding the shade up in my hand. Be careful The limit tool needs the shade to be powered, so you cannot just hook up the limit setting tool to test.
Once you've set limits, you can now try issuing a command through the OmniPro II. You can do this through PC Access, but I highly recommend having something on your phone (like Haiku), where you can easily test on a whim. It's good to be at the shade when controlling the first couple times, especially if you need to troubleshoot wires, or if there is an unforseen problem (like a fabric snag).
One note on the Shangri La / Silhouette type shades; they are kind of tricky to use with the default configuration. The concept of these shades is at the very end when fully extended, the shades go horizontal and open up. The position to close them is actually around 4-5%, to have the shade all the way down but still have the horizontals closed. This means that it is difficult to open and close them with the on/off switch. In Haiku, you have to adjust to the right percentage with the slider bar, and it's next to impossible to get 4% every time. On a few windows, I set the lower limit to be around 4%, and that allows me to use on/off conveniently. However, with this limit, you essentially lose the ability to flip the horizontals open, since that full extension is "out of bounds". Maybe there is a way to make this easier, but I haven't figured it out yet.
I have yet to hook up any Glydea 35s, but when I do I'll try and add my findings to this thread.
Anyway. here's some pictures of the panels:
I hope this helps!
STEP1 - Prewire
While my drywall was down, I ended up wiring 14/2 (power) and CAT5 (for RS485) to each shade location. I also put an outlet and CAT5 to every sliding glass door for Glydea 35 automated drapes. All wires came back to a central closet into a large 50" structured wiring enclosure. Since I wanted my shades mounted on the inside of the window frame, they drilled holes through the top of the frame, 4" from the top left corner, about 1.5" from the back. You can see here:
You have quite a few options on where your wires can come out, so don't get too caught up with this. Just make sure not to have them come out where the shade makes contact on each side. There isn't any room there, as the shade goes in flush. The location I chose is just fine, but in retrospect, a more optimal location would have been 4.5" down from the top left corner, as it would have been a straight shot right into the motor. See here:
If I had to do it all again, I would have definitely used the 4 wire power/data stuff that they show in the wiring instructions. I can't emphasize this enough. I am automating 19 shades, and that is enough to fill your entire enclosure with a rats nest of wires. There is the argument for "future proofing" with new stuff that potentially needs CAT5, but let's be real; your investment is now with RS485, and a decade from now when you upgrade, wireless will be king. If you know you are going with Somfy IWT motors now, then wire efficiently for them. CAT5 is overkill because you only need 2 of the 8 wires for RS485. On the power side, 14/2 was definitely *way* too thick, so 16/2 is fine even for super long runs.
Another trick to reduce the amount of wires you need - daisy chaining. For example, If you have three windows in a row, you can daisy chain both power and data cables, and only run a single homerun back to your enclosure. Remember, RS485 is a bus. This means that when your OmniPro sends a command, it encodes the hardwired address of the motor in each command. This data gets sent everywhere on the bus, and it is up to the motor to say "hey that's my address" and react. All the other motors will receive the command on the RS485 bus, but will not respond since the command did not match their address. I'll describe more about this later. The disadvantage to chaining is that if you have a point of failure, it will be difficult to improvise. I bucket this into future proofing, and you need to weigh the tradeoff between having a clean install vs. less work if one of your wires fails.
STEP 1a - Getting Past Inspection
My contractor made a big deal about wires hanging out of the wall for inspection. Apparently inspectors don't like unterminated wires, even if they are low voltage / data. You have two options: Install the blinds before inspection, or cover them up in some tubing/boxing. I did the latter, because there were so many things to juggle while getting ready for the Certificate of Occupancy, I would have never found the time to buy and install the shades with so many unknowns. As you can see from the first picture, I used a tube with sticky tape, and connected it to a box with sticky tape. I used the box to roll up a few more inches of wiring, but this was completely unnecessary. Doing it again, I would just use about a foot of tube and call it a day.
STEP 2 - Buying Stuff
This is a list of things you'll need:
- HAI OmniPro II in a structured wiring enclosure. The bigger the better.
- HAI PC Access. You will need the pro version to set a couple things that are unavailable in the consumer version. More on this later.
- Prewire your home like described above, with all wires coming back to the structured enclosure.
- Somfy Sonesse ST30 IWT motor(s), enclosed in a shade. I bought from a custom local manufacturer that was able to make rolldowns with the ST30 and Hunter Douglas Silhouette fabric. I was pretty close to buying Comfortex Shangri-La, which recently started integrating the ST30 IWT motor from the factory. You can also get regular rolldowns or blackouts.
- ST30 Limit Tool. This tool allows you to set where the motor needs to stop at the upper and lower limits of the shade.
- Altech or Meanwell Power supply. I bought the Altech 10A one here because it's essentially the same as the Meanwell ones, except cheaper. Each ST30 draws about 1 amp of power, so mine let's me move about 10 of my shades at once. If you want to move more than that many at a time, buy another one (or one with 20A).
- Somfy Power/Distribution panel. I bought two of the 10 motor ones, since I have 19. Here's something to remember: you only need to account for your home runs; not necessarily every motor. For example, if you have 10 shades, but 6 are daisy chained together with one home run, that means you have 5 home runs, and would only need a single 5 motor distribution panel.
- USB to Serial Port Adapter
Step 3 - Installation & Programming
So you're ready to install all the thousands of dollars worth of equipment you just bought. Before you do anything, you'll need the address of your motors. This is a 6 digit number that is labeled in two or three places across the shaft of the motor. Make sure your shade manufacturer gives you this number with your shades! My manufacturer didn't, and so I needed to take apart the shade to get it. That was super annoying, but doable. Once you have your motor addresses, then you need to translate them through the Somfy ILT2 and ST30 RS485 Motor Configuration tool. This software wants a COM port, and most modern computers don't have one. That's where a USB to serial port adapter comes in handy. This will create a virtual port that the software can see, and when you connect to the COM port, you will gain access to the address translation tool. Here you check ST30, enter your motor address, hit Calc and out pops an ILT address. You need this because your OmniPro is preconfigured for Somfy ILT, and will require you to specify the address as an ILT address.
Once you have ILT addresses for your motors, you are ready to configure your OmniPro II. In PC Access (Pro), you need to configure one of the serial ports under Expansion > Serial as Somfy ILT. Remember to set as 4800 baud. Next, you need to setup some Units in PC Access that correspond to your shades. This consists of setting a block of units as type Somfy ILT, and then configuring each Unit with the name and address of the shade:
In the screen above, the address column is missing (consumer version). You need the pro version, and you enter the ILT address that you translated earlier. Once you are done, write your changes to the controller and get ready for physical setup.
Now you have to connect your OmniPro II and Power supply to the Somfy Power/Distribution panel. The power supply part is pretty straightforward, but the OP2 is tricky. The dist. panel has an RJ45 jack, and the OP2 a regular serial jack. Plus it's really confusing which wires are required, and which aren't. I ended up creating a custom wire with a CAT5 wire, shown below:
I won't get into the details and pinouts of each system. Just know that on the phone jack side, it is four prong and solid orange goes into the end slot, striped orange goes next to it. I can tell you for sure that if you replicate this cable, it will work
Once you've got your distribution panel powered up and connected, you can start wiring in your shades. This is pretty straightforward from the the wiring instructions, so I won't go into much detail. Once your shade is wired up, this is probably a good time to use the limit setting tool. You plug this bad boy into the four prong dry contact port of the ST30, and this will give you a remote control to move the shade up and down, and set it's limits. Details can be found at the end of the Sonesse 30 RS485 Installation Instructions. I personally did this for the first shade before I even mounted it, just to make sure it worked. I basically connected directly to the panel with an ad hoc constructed cable, and tested one while holding the shade up in my hand. Be careful
The limit tool needs the shade to be powered, so you cannot just hook up the limit setting tool to test.Once you've set limits, you can now try issuing a command through the OmniPro II. You can do this through PC Access, but I highly recommend having something on your phone (like Haiku), where you can easily test on a whim. It's good to be at the shade when controlling the first couple times, especially if you need to troubleshoot wires, or if there is an unforseen problem (like a fabric snag).
One note on the Shangri La / Silhouette type shades; they are kind of tricky to use with the default configuration. The concept of these shades is at the very end when fully extended, the shades go horizontal and open up. The position to close them is actually around 4-5%, to have the shade all the way down but still have the horizontals closed. This means that it is difficult to open and close them with the on/off switch. In Haiku, you have to adjust to the right percentage with the slider bar, and it's next to impossible to get 4% every time. On a few windows, I set the lower limit to be around 4%, and that allows me to use on/off conveniently. However, with this limit, you essentially lose the ability to flip the horizontals open, since that full extension is "out of bounds". Maybe there is a way to make this easier, but I haven't figured it out yet.
I have yet to hook up any Glydea 35s, but when I do I'll try and add my findings to this thread.
Anyway. here's some pictures of the panels:
I hope this helps!
