Hello,

I have a dedicated Home Theater room with Lamb modulers controlling my lights. Question, what do I need to control my lights. Here is what I want to do. With my pronto remote I want to be able to push a button (start movie) and have all the lights dim down to about 10%. At the same time I want to push one button (stop movie) and have the lights come back up to 100%. What X-10 items do I need to be able to do what I want?

Thanks Rick

You need an IR543/IR7243 to receive the IR commands from the Pronto and convert them to X10.

There are several ways of achieving your dimming/brightening with the Pronto but the simplest is simply to have a sequence of single dim/bright commands with appropriate delays between them.

I already have the IR543 receiver so I am good there. What other way can I dim the lights down to a certain level without putting a ton of single comnands in?

Thanks Rick

You could write a loop in prontoscript which called the dimming function the required number of times. If you know prontoscript, that would be easy (but why would you then be asking?). If you don't know prontoscript, the 'ton of commands' option is by far the easiest. Note that, depending on your 'electrical environment', either option might be a bit problematic in that they both assume that all the X10 dim commands are successfully processed.

I have heard that, with certain lamp modules, one can use 'direct dim' X10 commands (effectively "dim to X%") but I have never got these to work myself.

I use the scene feature from Lamplinc modules to do exactly what you want. In short, you assign a second and third X10 address to each lamp module that turns on to 10% or 100% by sending only one X10 command for each.

Hart2hart,

I like what you are saying. The modules that I am using are the LM465. Can I do what you are talking about with these and if so I do I go about doing this?

Thanks Rick

The LM465 do not have sceene capabilites. You will need to get something like the smarthome lamplinc module.

Without buying new lamp modules how else can I go about doing what I want?

Thanks

Ok, I was talking to a friend this weekend and he remembered a guy that had an X-10 system in his theater. He said that he set up all of his setting by a computer which then down loaded them onto a items that was pluged into an outlet and had an entenna on it. Does anyone know what I am talking about and if this would work?

Is this what I need?

[Link: cgi.ebay.com]

That is their older system and will not work with Windows Vista and if your PC doesn't have a Serial connection then you are out of luck. X10 has a new interface called X10 AcriveHome Pro which connects to your PC via USB to download the settings to then can be disconnected and it will control the lighting for you