Fibaro Dimmer 2 FGD-212 supported? New type!

[spring75]

Good news for those with offpeak ripple tone issue's.

I received this email via Fibaro support.

We are currently testing the new OTS module firmware updates as a closed Beta. This issue is noted in the changelog for the Dimmer 2 upgrades. Specifically…

“Reduction of stroboscopic-effect for dimers affected with Ripple Control signal”

This should resolve your issue once this becomes publicly available. Due to the success we have had so far, I’m expecting this to be released within the next 14 days.


Now I'll have to workout how I'll get the firmware updated on these dimmers.

No good news unfortunately... After sending them photos of the QR codes on my dimmers, I was advised to send back my dimmers under warranty (postal costs at customer's expense of course..) to get them replaced with 'new' ones with the latest firmware installed. Although Fibaro seems to claim all ripple control problems are solved with this update 2.4, i can confirm they are still as sensitive to ripple control pulses as before...

I now will try to get them replaced by my reseller with some cheaper ones (like http://www.benext.eu/en/products/built-in-dimmer/), since all my cheaper z-wave products funny enough don't have any problems with ripple control...

[spring75]

One more update on this... I DID see some improvement by connecting the dimmer with 2 wires, instead of the 3 wire connection. Still some flickering, but noticeably better.

[Nelissuh]

Hello, I read you are using update 2.4

How can I read the firmware version?
How can I update the firmware over Domoticz?

My lights are flashing during a CAB signal.

I tried the 2 wire connection, but then I got flasing lights at certain dimming percentages.

[Cubes]

Has anyone tried upgrading to firmware 3.5 to check whether the Ripple Control effects have improved?

Recently they've introduced a new CAB signel at 8 in the evening which means we're now living in a disco at 8, 10, 11 and 11.30 and it's driving the mrs. insane

I'd upgrade myself but spending a small fortune on a Homecenter which I won't use for anything else but the upgrades seems a bit of waste. Then again it's worth it if it fixes all the ripple control issues.

-edit-

Noticed that there's now an option switch 38 within the 3.5 manual

38. Brightness level correction for flickering loads
Correction reduces spontaneous flickering of some capacitive load (e.g. dimmable lEDs) at certain brightness levels in 2-wire installation.
In countries using ripple-control, correction may cause changes in
brightness. In this case it is necessary to disable correction or adjust
time of correction for flickering loads.

My domoticz install (currently on stable) doesn't have an option 38 (jumps from 37 to 39)
Can I make it appear somehow? That would be awesome.

[Cubes]

Just heard from a Home Center user that the 3.5 firmware itself isn't actually released yet and that it still shows his 3.4 dimmers as up to date. The manual for 3.5 is however available.

[Rolfie]

I was also wondering how you can read the firmware in Domoticz? And is it possible to update your firmware through Domoticz (or some other application which doens't require me to buy a Home Center).

[spring75]

I was told by Fibaro it isn't possible to update the firmware (at least not through domoticz). As i mentioned before, i did not get better results through a firmware upgrade, but a two-wire installation instead of the recommended 3-wire installation seems to help a lot with ripple-control issues.

[Cubes]

I was told by Fibaro it isn't possible to update the firmware (at least not through domoticz). As i mentioned before, i did not get better results through a firmware upgrade, but a two-wire installation instead of the recommended 3-wire installation seems to help a lot with ripple-control issues.

Previous firmware upgrades never addressed ripple control but 3.5 specifically mentions in. It's worth a shot.

[spring75]

fwiw.
This is part of the response i got from Fibaro Tech support:

The situation with Dimmer’s sensitivity for ripple control haven’t change, unfortunately. We aleso haven’t develop any suppressors, in fact it is almost impossible in regard of different frequencies of ripple in given country, sometimes they’re different in some of regions in same country.

[spring75]

[forgot the second part of their reply..]

There’s one more method, that none of our agents suggest till now: please try to connect Dimmer 2 with two wires instead of three, that should at least decrease ripple control effect (bulb flicking).

[Cubes]

That doesn't sound anything like their official statement in November

We assured you all that we work hard to minimize the effect that you all are struggling with. At the moment, we are testing the solution that reduced the flickering significantly in lab environment. We will perform further tests in more “natural” environment to be 100% sure that this solution is effective.

[spring75]

Sorry for my vagueness; This was the last reply i got, sent BEFORE november. It was after i got my dimmers back that they themselves updated to 2.4. I gave up hope after that and didn't bother to look for any news on this (and the 2 wire solution was sort of working anyway).

But of course i certainly hope that 2.5 will address this issue! But then the quesion remains: how to update the firmware ourselves?

[Cubes]

Sorry for my vagueness; This was the last reply i got, sent BEFORE november. It was after i got my dimmers back that they themselves updated to 2.4. I gave up hope after that and didn't bother to look for any news on this (and the 2 wire solution was sort of working anyway).

But of course i certainly hope that 2.5 will address this issue! But then the quesion remains: how to update the firmware ourselves?

This is my planned strategy: Buy second hand HC lite. Update dimmers. Sell second hand HC lite.

Not ideal but can't think of anything else

[Cubes]

FGD-212 Firmware 3.5 has been officially released.

No reports yet on Ripple control flickering improvements.

[Cubes]

Changelog:

3.5
[change] Added parameter 38 - reduction of automatic level control in 2-way connection mode. Changing this parameter allows to impair the Ripple Control impact on output brightness.
[fix] Improved dimming with Ripple Control Signaling in 3-way connection mode.
[fix] Improved rejection of short voltage interruptions causing spontaneous maximum brightening.
[fix] Fixed Z-Wave Multilevel:StartLevelChange with parameter (direction = down). Dimming now stops at Value = 1.

Now I guess we start poking our beloved Domoticz devs for param 38 support

[YcKe]

I've added parameter 38 to the config file at the OpenZwave GitHub.
You can track this pull request to check the merge status: https://github.com/OpenZWave/open-zwave ... f1725866f6

Note that the Domoticz team merges the OpenZwave sources manually on a regular basis so it might not be available immediately in Domoticz. You can always import it manually .

Enjoy.

Greetz YcKe

[Nelissuh]

I changed to 2-wire connection (dimming 8x4w Megaman dim to warm), but it resulted in lights flickering all day long in a wide range of the dimming. So I changed back to 3-wire connection, resulting is stable light in the total dimming range, except during CAB signals.

When I read the Firmware 3.5 manual, I think the parameter 38 is to solve the issue I describe above, and not to solve the CAB signal issue.

38. Brightness level correction for flickering loads
Correction reduces spontaneous flickering of some capacitive load
(e.g. dimmable LEDs) at certain brightness levels in 2-wire installation.
In countries using ripple-control, correction may cause changes in
brightness. In this case it is necessary to disable correction or adjust
time of correction for flickering loads..

I am thinking of sending the dimmer to Fibaro for service, as in my vision the unit is broken. By Busch Jager dimmer (manual) does not show any CAB issues, so solving the issue is possible for sure.

[Cubes]

I've added parameter 38 to the config file at the OpenZwave GitHub.
You can track this pull request to check the merge status: https://github.com/OpenZWave/open-zwave ... f1725866f6

Note that the Domoticz team merges the OpenZwave sources manually on a regular basis so it might not be available immediately in Domoticz. You can always import it manually .

Enjoy.

Greetz YcKe

Awesome, much appreciated YcKe.

I changed to 2-wire connection (dimming 8x4w Megaman dim to warm), but it resulted in lights flickering all day long in a wide range of the dimming. So I changed back to 3-wire connection, resulting is stable light in the total dimming range, except during CAB signals.

When I read the Firmware 3.5 manual, I think the parameter 38 is to solve the issue I describe above, and not to solve the CAB signal issue.

38. Brightness level correction for flickering loads
Correction reduces spontaneous flickering of some capacitive load
(e.g. dimmable LEDs) at certain brightness levels in 2-wire installation.
In countries using ripple-control, correction may cause changes in
brightness. In this case it is necessary to disable correction or adjust
time of correction for flickering loads..

I am thinking of sending the dimmer to Fibaro for service, as in my vision the unit is broken. By Busch Jager dimmer (manual) does not show any CAB issues, so solving the issue is possible for sure.

Unfortunately Fibaro doesn't consider CAB signals as something they should take care of. It's tricky to do as well because there's loads of different frequencies in use anywhere inbetween 250 en 1500Hz. Personally mine are on 1347Hz.

I'm going to wait for a few more reports from HC2 users to see whether there's an improvement before I go look for a way to update to 3.5 myself.

[Nelissuh]

Has anybody tested the 3.5 fimware and has the CAB issue been solved?

[Cubes]

Has anybody tested the 3.5 fimware and has the CAB issue been solved?

No, unfortunately not. I've been on the hunt for a second hand Homecenter in order to be able update but haven't found anything within budget so far.