Ramp Functions.

colinhasted

Hi there,
Just a quick question, I've got a dimmer pack which has it's own 5 second fade time built in. I am coding so that 8 presets can be recalled or new ones made and saved over. I'd like the bar graphs on the touch panel to 'pseudo' fade with dimmer pack rather than snapping to the new values (just to look nice). Rather like a 'hmm hmm' Cxxtron dimming module.

Can anyone think of an easy way to do this rather than taking the difference in fader positions and dividing it by the time to work out the increments etc etc?

I'm sure I must be missing an obvious trick!

Colin

DHawthorne

I dunno about obvious trick ... but what comes to my mind is make it a multi-state bargraph, and when the button is pressed that triggers the fade, fire a timeline that increments a value and fires off SEND_LEVELs to your display. If you make enough states, it will be very smooth (as long as your connection is solid ). I would do like ten and fire them off at half-second intervals.

PhreaK

Have you tried setting the 'time up' and time down' button of the bar graphs in TP design 4. I can't remember if they respect that when sent a level from code.

DHawthorne

PhreaK wrote: »

Have you tried setting the 'time up' and time down' button of the bar graphs in TP design 4. I can't remember if they respect that when sent a level from code.

Heh ... that would be his obvious trick. I doubt actual feedback matters, if he's just sending an on or an off. It just has to move at near the same pace as the actual dimming.

colinhasted

Thanks for the info. It does still leave the problem of the dimmer pack taking say 2 seconds to dim light 1 from 50 - 100 percent and at the same time taking 2 seconds to dim light 2 from 90-100 percent.

I guess it looks like a maths approach is going to be the only option - working out the rate of increase required and then incrementing via a set timeline. A pain I guess, but it will certainly look more professional than just snapping the level faders. Ironically the easy thing would be to ditch the level faders altogether but it is a helpful indication that the user has hit the end stops!