Fibaro dimmer 2 installation Home Automation (Vera)

Today I installed a Fibaro Dimmer 2 module for my living room ceiling lights, so I took some photographs and thought I’d do a blog write up.

The Fibaro Dimmer 2 is a small wireless Z-Wave module that is installed behind light switches to make them “smart”. We can then control the lights wirelessly in the home automation system.

This will enable us to control the lights via our smart phones and tablet devices using the ImperiHome mobile app. We can then also setup scenes and schedules to have the lights automatically come on and off at certain times if we wish, or to simulate house occupancy when we are away.

Another function with scenes for example, could be if a Z-Wave smoke or C02 sensor was triggered in the night we could have the scene automatically turn on the lights to aid our escape or another example might be if our burglar alarm scene was tripped in the night we could also automatically turn on the lights inside and outside of the house when this happens.

The Fibaro Dimmer 2 user manual can be found here


Supported Loads

As a dimmer it operates under the following loads:
• 230V operated conventional incandescent and halogen light
sources
• 12V operated ELV halogen lamps and dimmable LED bulbs (with
electronic transformers)
• 12V operated MLV halogen lamps (with ferromagnetic
transformers)
• dimmable LED bulbs
• dimmable compact fluorescent CFL tube lamps
• supported dimmable light sources (power factor > 0.5) with
minimal power of 5VA using FIBARO Bypass 2 (depending on the
type of load)


Without dimming function it may work with:
• compact fluorescent CFL tube lamps with electronic ballast
• fluorescent tube lamps with electronic ballast
• LED bulbs (power factor > 0.7)
• supported light sources (power factor > 0.5) with minimal power
of 5VA using FIBARO Bypass 2 (depending on the type of load)

I am using a light fitting that has a 240v –> 12v transformer built in to it and I am using 4x new MR16 ECO low energy 14W halogen bulbs.

The Fibaro Dimmer 2 has a minimum load of 50W. So my 4x 14W halogen bulbs are 56W total, which is OK as I am over the 50W minimum. However if the total of your bulbs wattage is less than 50W, perhaps you are using low wattage LED bulbs, then you will also need to also install a Dimmer Bypass 2 as well. I’d say its probably best to install the Bypass 2 device as a matter of course anyway.




“The Fibaro Dimmer Bypass 2 acts as an intelligent load in the lighting circuit and will help prevent the LEDs flickering at startup, low dim settings or when they should be Off. The dimmer bypass should be installed in one of the light fittings or in the wiring going to the light fitting, it must be connected between the light's Live and Neutral wires. You only need one Dimmer Bypass 2 for each circuit (not for each light bulb).”

There are several excellent application notes from the guys at Vesternet about the Dimmer 2:

• Installing a Fibaro Dimmer 2 Module into a Wall Light Switch
• Using Fibaro Dimmer 2 with LED Lights
• 2-Way Lighting Using Fibaro Dimmer 2 
• Using Different Switches with the Fibaro Dimmer 2 
• Using a 3-Position Switch with a Fibaro Dimmer 2

Here is my ceiling lights in the living room.



I took it apart to take a closer look at the inbuilt 240v –> 12v transformer



I didn’t install a Bypass 2 as my bulb wattage total was over 50W and I don’t plan to use LED bulbs anytime soon.

For the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module to fit behind the light switches I recommend using 35mm back boxes. I also recommend replacing your existing light switches with 3-position momentary, or retractive, switches, these have 3 positions and are also known as an ON/OFF/ON switch.

Why use a 3-position Switch

This type of switch provides another way of controlling the Fibaro Dimmer 2 (and the light it is connected to):

• Top ON
  • Press once and release - turns light onto full brightness or previously set dim level
  • Press and hold - increases brightness, releasing it keeps the lamp at that brightness
• Bottom ON
  • Press once and release - turns light off
  • Press and hold - decreases brightness, releasing it keeps the lamp at that brightness

Installation and Configuration

The switch and Dimmer 2 module can be connected to the lighting system as follows.

Using a 3-Position Switch with a Fibaro Dimmer 2





I wired up my Fibaro Dimmer 2 as per the wiring diagram above. I am using the Scolmore Minigrid 3 position momentary switches.

Here you can see the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module

Here is my orginal bog standard dimmer switch minus the screws which I had already took out.

Most UK light switch back boxes are likely to be only 16mm deep, so this means you will need to replace the back box with a deeper 35mm one.

Or you can buy light switch spacers to bring out the light switch away from the wall and then give you more space behind, but I am not keen on that look.

Here is the existing dimmer switch wiring, the wiring in my house is quite old done when the house was built in the 70s. Most UK light switches are a 2 wire system with no neutral.

The Fibaro Dimmer 2 module however supports both 2 wire and 3 wire systems.

I turned off the electric at the consumer unit for the lighting ring and disconnected the original dimmer switch.

I then proceeded to remove the 16mm back box, unfortunately I rushed this a little and some of the surrounding plaster work came away. I am sure if you take your time and are more careful than I was you can remove the back box with less damage.

I then proceeded with the hammer and chisel to knock out the block work deeper to fit the new 35mm metal back box.

Next I started connecting the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module and the new Minigrid switch.

Once wired in I applied my first lot of wall filler to fix the holes I had made.

I will later sand this down and apply a second lot of filler to make the job nice and neat and then use a little more white paint to finish.

You then need to pair the new Fibaro Dimmer 2 to the Vera home automation controller, I won’t cover how to do that here as its pretty standard stuff.

Once paired I then had 3 new devices in the Vera web GUI, two are child devices which I will hide from the GUI later as they are not needed. I renamed the main parent device to “Lounge Lights”.

When the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module is first powered on it runs an auto calibration routine to work out what type of lighting system / bulbs are in use and to automatically configure the minimum and maximum brightness levels.

In the device options I had to to set parameter 20 to 1 byte Dec with a value of 2. This tells the Dimmer 2 I am using the 3 position momentary type of light switch and sets it up in that mode etc.

Also you can add paramaters 1 and 2 to see the minimum and maximum brightness levels detected by the calibration routine. Mine were 1 and 82.

If you wish you could for example set parameter 2 to 70, so that when the light is on 100% in the GUI it is actually only using 70% brightness, this is another way to save yet more energy
consumption.

In the end after playing around with these parameters for a while I finally set parameter 2 to 80.

Here are the device controls in the Vera UI7 web GUI.

I then added the device in to the ImperiHome mobile application on all of our smart phones and tablet devices.

Summary

The Fibaro Dimmer 2 is a retro fit wireless Z-Wave lighting controller and is an essential part of any Z-Wave home automation installation. They make your home lighting “smart” and gives you the home owner added benefits of energy saving, security and control.

LED Strip Lighting Project–Part5

I wanted to install some LED lights outside on the decking. I figured out I could run two 5050 LED Controllers and LED strips from the one large 15amp LED Driver power supply, so I hooked up my second LED Controller / RF touch remote kit.

Testing the second LED Controller connected to the same 15A power supply



The LED strip in the kitchen and the one just outside on the deck won’t be in colour sync, however I wanted two LED Controllers and two RF touch remote controls, so I could independently control the kitchen or deck lights. As I didn’t want the outside lights on all the time if I just wanted the ones in the kitchen on.

I drilled a hole out in the corner behind the washing machine, through the external wall which I then fed through the cables to the outside.



I did actually buy a 2 amp LED driver power supply but I didn’t need it in the end, I will use this behind the kids wall mounted TV in their bedroom as they now want LED lights in their room, I just need to buy another IR remote control and LED controller, will probably buy the cheaper 24 key IR version.

2 Amp LED Driver Power Supply is allot smaller than I imagined it would be.



Larger 15A Power Supply left and the smaller 2A Power Supply right.



Patio window at the rear of the house / decking area.



The hole in the wall from the kitchen is just below the electric meter box on the left of the picture, this is where the LED strip starts and at the other end on the right the LED strip is just cut off to length.



Pink!



The LED’s are much brighter than I imagined and light up the decking area well. I was going to add a second LED strip at the opposite side of the decking but I don’t think I will bother, one strip seems to be bright enough.



Not the best picture but its very Blue!



I added an ACT HomePro Z-WAVE appliance plug under the kitchen cupboards that plugs into the 15 amp LED Driver power supply, this will enable me to turn on and off the LED lights from the mControl Home Automation system rather than just being able to use the RF touch remotes, I will also now be able to set on/off timers and also to cut all power to the LED Driver power supply which I wouldn’t have been able to do other wise with the kick boards in place.



mControl MCML add-in for Windows Media Center with custom LED Lights device icon.
Back Garden – LED Lights – ON/OFF



Kitchen – LED Lights - ON/OFF



mControl for Internet Explorer

Well that’s it, once I’ve gotten the LEDs up and running behind the kids bedroom TV I think I will be all done on the LED lighting front, for now at least!

Next project? Maybe some bespoke Z-wave enabled motorized Somfy blackout roller blinds!

UPDATE

I replaced the IR LED controller with a Z-Wave Fibaro RGBW module, see here for more about that upgrade.

LED Strip Lighting Project–Part4

In part 3 I used about 3 metres of 5050 LED strip in the kitchen, that left me with about 2 metres to create something for the back of the wall mounted HDTV in the living room.

With the length of LED strip I had left I measured and worked out the lengths of four pieces. You can cut these LED strips at the marked intervals.



As this was a waterproof LED strip I was working on, I had to slice back the silicone cover with a Stanley knife to reveal the four golden contact pins. The peg was used to keep the silicone cover held back out of the way. Using the LED cable I bought I had to use maybe 2 inch lengths of this cable that would join the 4 LED strips, this will become clearer in pictures further down the page.



Now I am not going to lie soldering these cables on was allot harder than I imagined, keeping in mind the LED strip is only 8MM wide and the contact pins are very close together, I’ve done quite a bit of soldering before but I am by no means an expert and my shaky hands don’t really help either. Ideally you need a keen eye and a steady hand for the job.

You should tin the ends of each cable first with solder and I found if I put a small blob of solder on each of the four contact pins on the LED strip first, when I came to attach the cable it was much easier. However the biggest problem as the contact pins are so close together, is ensuring that you do not bridge the gap between these contacts with your solder or wires etc.



This is the desired result joining two of the LED strips with our LED cable so we can create a right angle bend behind the TV.



You can buy right angled LED pieces off eBay like the ones shown below, but I can’t see how they would help? As you still need to solder them on?



I think its important to test each join you create before proceeding to the next one.



Here you can get an idea of how it might look when stuck behind the TV, once I had finished soldering I carefully attached some black electrical tape over the ends.



Here you can see the completed loom laid out on the kitchen floor.



Note there are only 3 corners that I joined using the LED cable, the last one top left is just cut off at the end and does not join back round to the start.



As this loom is going behind the TV I opted for an IR remote control and not RF. This is so I can program my Logitech Harmony universal remote control to control the LED lights, I will then not use the original 44 key LED remote control.

The LED controller is also allot smaller than it looks in the pictures on eBay when compared to the top off a bottle of Coke.



OK so now I am starting to attach the LED strip to the back of the TV, I forgot to mention in part 3 that these LED strips all have sticky 3M backing.





Completed installation.



On all these photographs and in the YouTube video there is a light halo, you don’t actually see this in real life and the pictures and video don’t really do it justice to how well it really looks.





Well that’s it for part 4. In part 5 I may cover programming and teaching your Logitech Harmony universal remote control to be able to control the LED lights instead of using the supplied IR remote control. Or I may look at my LED installation in the back garden, but I’ve not done that yet and its raining allot here in the UK so maybe a few weeks away.

Part 5 here.