Category Archives: Logic Machine

Posts about the Logic Machine re:actor I use for home automation

DMX LogicMachine Lights user library

I have been optimizing my DMX scripts for the LogicMachine. The following is a set of functions that will enable you to turn a set of DMX channels on/off.


-- set of variables for zones in the apartment
 alllights = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24}

 bathroomlights = {7,8,20}
 livinglights = {5,6,9,10,11,12,14,15,16,17,18,19}
 kitchenlights = {13}
 bedroomlights = {1,2}
 entrancelights = {4}

-- turns DMX stripe to full on or off based on two groups
function dmxtoggle(channel, state)
 -- group that contains the value for ON
 on = grp.getvalue('5/7/17')
 -- group that contains the value for OFF
 off = grp.getvalue('5/7/18')
 if (state == true) then
  DMX.set(channel, on)
 else
  DMX.set(channel, off)
 end
end

-- loops through all lights
-- lights is an array of the channel(s) to be set
-- state is the state of the group
function dmxlooptoggle(lights, state)
 for index, value in ipairs(lights) do
  dmxtoggle(value, state)
 end
end

--Loops through an array of channels and sets them to a value
function dmxloopset(lights, value)
 for index, channel in ipairs(lights) do
  DMX.set(channel, value)
 end
end

To use it, create a user library, I called it mydmx. Then copy/paste the above code and change the variables to the light groups you want to switch together.

To then run it use the following code. The first line enables the above user library. Then the dmxlooptoggle is called to change the bathroom light to the value of the group (on/off). the last code updates a group that holds the status object (on/off).


require('user.mydmx')
dmxlooptoggle(bathroomlights, event.getvalue())
grp.write('5/7/24', event.getvalue())

Batch change color of SVG icon set

CC-SA 3.0
Iconset in LM3

I ran across this cool set of icons that can be used in home automation projects. The latest firmware from openrb allows me to use SVGs as Icons in the logic machine re:actor. Only drawback is that for each state I would like to change the color of the icon. The iconset is set in white as default color.

When you open any of the SVGs from the KNX User Forum you will find that the color is set as a standard #000000 HTML color value for white. All we would need to do is switch these from that to for example #FFFFFF for them to be black. To do this on one file the code would be:
sed -i -e's/\"#.\{6\}/\"#000000/g' -e 's/#.*;/#FFFFFF;/g' icon.svg

where icon.svg is the file we want to turn into black lines.

If we then want to change all, we need a small bash script to loop all the files in a directory and apply the change. That would look like this:
for f in *.svg;
do
echo "Changing color of $f ..."
sed -i -e's/\"#.\{6\}/\"#000000/g' -e 's/#.*;/#FFFFFF;/g' "$f";
done

It is a good Idea to rename the files with a prefix that describes the color. That way you will have them sorted by color in the logic machine. Just change Black to any color you have chosen.
for f in *.svg ; do mv "$f" "Black $f" ; done

The logic machine likes the files to be zipped if you are going to upload a batch. I used this command to generate it:
zip black.zip *

Now you can go into the logic machine and upload black.zip.

Logic Machine reactor in infinite boot loop

Two days ago my Logic Machine stopped working. The main led blinked for a few seconds and then it would reboot. I contacted the openrb support and was told what I had already thought. The SD card in the Logic Machine had gone corrupt and I needed a new one. I bought a new 4 gig card and opened the Logic Machine using a screw driver. Pushing out the main board was easy and the SD card is sitting prominently in the middle. To get it out you need to push the metal holder away from the SD card, in a sliding motion. The card can then easily be replaced with a new one.

To flash the firmware to the new card you need to download the recovery image from here. Unzip it with

gunzip recovery.img.gz

Then flash it to the SD card using

dd if=recovery.img of=/dev/sdb

(the sdb should be the device of your SD card!). It takes a few minutes as the unziped image is 3.5 Gig large.

After placing the newly burned SD card into the Logic Machine you can reach it on 192.168.0.10 and then upload the reactor.img to finish the process. I then as a precaution did a factory reset by holding the reset button down for 10 secs (the red led will start blinking) and then pushing it again for 10 second (the red led will start blinking faster).

I had a fairly recent backup of my system, such that I could start living again. The whole process took about an hour to finish.