ICELED

Hi there, new to the forum, though I've done a lot of looking round to try and solve the problem I'm having!

I'm installing a zen controller and two flexidrivers in my kitchen, but wiring it all before installing so I can iron out any issues before messing about with cabinets and the like. I've got the two sets of RGB LEDs working, set up as you can see here and it all seems to be working, other than the on/off button on the remote is only controlling zone one. Zone two carries on being switched on and seems to default to a program that I've not quite yet figured out - but not the one that it was on when the off button is pressed on the remote.

My understanding was that the Zen could control each zone separately from the one remote. Perhaps mistakenly I thought I'd be able to select the different zones from the remote and choose what program I wanted each to run, or if I wanted the zone to be on or off. I may be missing something fundamental here though, so any help anyone can give would be really useful!

Cheers, James

Hi James, welcome to the Iceled forums

Straight away I can see why, if you followed the Litewave diagram, you would only get remote control of on/off on zone 1
I'm not sure where they came up with that diagram, but zone 1 is shown as the only zone with switched power (i.e. red power wire going to the ZEN controller).
I think it is trying to show that in large installations, which need more current than ZEN can switch, separate supplies can be run to the zones so bypassing the relay in ZEN.
The drawback with this very simple "fix" is that power on/off can't be controlled by ZEN. The way I'd suggest doing this would be to control an external relay from ZEN's power output, and have this relay interrupt power going to the zones.

But do you really need more than 10Amps for your kitchen lighting? How much current do your RGB Leds need in total? The reason your second zone is not under full control is that the Flexidriver has its own stand-alone colour change program and this is engaged when power is present but data is not - and that's what you would see in all but zone 1 if wired to the Litewave diagram.


As for ZEN being able to control each zone from the remote - yes this is exactly what ZEN is all about, however it is what is sometimes called a "scene" controller and this may be a new concept to you. This type of control scheme is very powerful in that you can pre-set different programs (scenes) which can be instantly recalled to produce different lighting schemes. Individual zones can be given different colours, intensities etc. and the settings are remembered as a "program". Then when you want a particular arrangement, it's recalled with a single button-press.

However, the process of editing a program may be more familiar to you in that it involves selecting a zone and using the remote to "dial-in" colour and brightness for each zone (which is how most people begin to think about lighting). While ZEN can happily be left in this mode you should soon find (once you have had a play) that it's far more convenient to set up a selection of programs for different lighting schemes and simply recall them as a single program when required. In the user guide these two modes of operation are called "Program Play" and "Program Edit"

Hi admin,

Thanks very much for the reply - makes perfect sense, and no I'm almost certain I don't need more than 10Amps in the kitchen, I'm running a total of around 9m of 30 LEDs/m, so only a total of roughly 5.4Amps needed. Changing the wiring to run zone two direct from the Zen does exactly what I wanted it to, so thank you very much for your assistance!

James

You're welcome! Always here to help and advise If you get around to taking any photos of your lighting we'd love to see them too

It'll be a little while, but when it's all done I'll post some pictures up for sure. Thanks again for your help.

Good luck with your project - ICELED is so versatile, I've just bought my first house and already planning how to get it working in the garden and living room!

I know this is an old thread but I suffered exactly the same problem with, apparently, (I cant see any graphics for the original post) the same diagram finally manage to figure it out by myself, so now at least I can get 2 zones to behave in a more rational manner, I'm a plumber and heating engineer with electrical qualifications so I'm no idiot, but the manual and sparse confusing instructions form Litewave leave me totally confused, what does this mean (From the conversation it sounds like you will need to connect both Flexidriver+ via 2 wires only as shown on the attached diagram with the Flexidriver+ connected to Zone 2.), as it is I've connected both flexidrivers+'s to the zen with no direct connection to the psu at all with three (RGB) wires to the zen and it seems to be working.

Im running a timer so they come on at 1800 and off at 2400, with a wire direct from the PSU to the ext connection so the last state is remembered, is that correct?

Also how does it detect sound has it got a mike or do i need to plug it into somewhere or other?

Ive yet to find out how to switch from zone one to zone two for programming but heyho, softly softly.

.... going to answer this?