Lights work, but the scenes and timers are wrong
Every button does something, just not the right thing. Scenes fire half-way, the outside lights come on at the wrong hour, or a key that used to run the whole house now runs one lamp. Nothing is broken here in the hardware sense.
This is a software fault, and it is worth understanding why that is good news and bad news at once. Good: no part has failed, nothing needs replacing, and no electrician needs to open anything. Bad: fixing it means changing the system's programming, which requires the right software, a way to connect to the network, and someone who knows how to drive both. That is where inherited systems usually get stuck.
Nothing on this page asks you to take anything apart. Every check here is done by looking, or by pressing buttons that are already on the outside of a wall plate. Opening the hinged door of your switchboard to see the breakers is normal and fine. Removing the panel behind them is not, and neither is unscrewing a wall plate or lifting the cover off an enclosure.
In Australia it is illegal to work on fixed wiring without an electrical licence, and the reason is not paperwork: the terminals behind a C-Bus wall plate can be sitting at mains voltage. Anything past the faceplate is a job for a licensed electrician, ideally one with C-Bus accreditation.
Which pattern fits best?
- The right things happen, at the wrong timeOutside lights at 3pm, a goodnight scene at lunchtime, or timings that have slid since daylight saving. This is the system clock, not the wiring.
- A key does the wrong thing, or a scene only half firesSomeone changed the programming, a unit was replaced without being programmed to match, or a scene refers to a channel that no longer exists.
- It went wrong when a computer or touchscreen stopped workingComplex scenes and schedules often live in a controller or PC rather than in the switches. If that has gone, its logic went with it.
- It has always been slightly wrong and nobody can change itThe system works as programmed, but nobody has the files or the access to reprogram it. This is the orphaned-system problem.
The question that decides the cost
Before anyone quotes to fix behaviour, the real question is: does the project file still exist? A C-Bus system's behaviour is defined in a project file created when it was commissioned. With it, an integrator connects, opens your actual configuration with all its names and scenes intact, changes what you want and saves. Without it, they must scan the network to rediscover every unit, and rebuild the naming and scene structure from scratch before they can change anything. Same end result, considerably more hours. What C-Bus Toolkit is explains what that software actually does, and the lost project file page covers what recovery involves.