How to Install the Somfy Dimmable LED RTS Light Kit

Hi my name is Tyler and I’m an engineer with Somfy Systems. Today I’m going to show you how to install our new LED RTS Dimmable Light Kit.

First let me give you a brief overview of the components in the kit. Here we have our RTS reciever control, this powers the motor and on the output side it will power the LED lights. Over here we have four LED lights, that come in cool white and warm white. For this application we chose the cool white. Next we have two interconnect cables, these go from the controls to the LEDs. Finally we have an optional Sunea power cord that will provide power to the LED receiver.

First thing we want to do is determine where we want to mount the RTS receiver. Two things you want to consider is where you have your power outlet, which we have over here, and if you’re utilizing a Sunea motor, the distance of cable to the Sunea motor itself. For this application we chose the bottom bar of the awning, as you can see there’s plenty of room on both sides of the control for the connectors to mount easily. And we have enough length of the cable from the Sunea motor to connect to the receiver.

The tools needed to mount the receiver is a screw gun and a size 8 self-tapping screw. Be sure that the head of the screw has a washer on it.

Once your location has been determined, you are now ready to fasten the receiver to the bottom of the back bar. Once the receiver is securely mounted to the bottom of the awning bar, you can now hook up the Sunea motor. The receiver has a weather cap over the connector, simply unscrew, take your cable, line up the key ways to the connector and tighten.

Next we are going to power up our awning by connecting the Sunea power cable. First we want to align the key ways on the connector and tighten it. Now that this is tight we can go ahead and plug in our cable to the outlet and bring the awning out.

Next we’re ready to mount the LED lights to the awning arms. First you have to prep the surface of the awning arms by cleaning them to ensure proper adhesion of the double-sided tape. Another important note is you want to take the male connector side and line it up with the end, or I should say the center of the awning arm joint, you want it to be lined up. That will ensure as the awning arm closes, the cables will not get pinched.

So we prepped the surface already, we know that the male connector has to go at the center point of this awning arm joint and we are ready to peel off the two-sided tape.

Another important note is to make sure you have the proper orientation of the LED bar because this might not come off very easily. Line up at the center and then we want to align the light bar and simply press. Apply pressure all along the light bar. And now you’re done. Now we can go ahead and hook up the other LED bar.

Next we’re going to mount the second LED light bar to the first. Connect and tighten the connectors over here and as I’ve said before the awning arm is already prepped and cleaned to insure proper adhesion. Remove the cover to the two-sided tape and center the LED on the awning arm. And press again all along. Everything is now good.

Now we’re going to connect the LED bars to the RTS receiver. You’re given two choices of cable, 5 foot and 15 foot provided with the kit. The five footer is unfortunately a little short, as you can see we have to go from this point at the end of the light bar, route it along the awning arm to the back bar and receiver. Like I said the five foot is too short so we’re going to have to use the 15 footer. I will first connect the cable to the LED bar.

Note the awning must be fully extended when you’re doing this.

We’re going to do a mock run of the cable, so as I said, we’re going to come along under the arm and come all the way to the back bar. And we’re going to go behind to help conceal the cable. Pull it through and we’re going to go with your connector right to the LED output and tighten.

So as you can see, you have a little bit of extra cable here, which we can cut and shorten to make a more custom fit. Next we will show you how to re-terminate the connector.

With your right hand grab only the end of the connector and loosen it. Now we see we have two wires in here, a red and a black, polarity does matter so write down which wire goes to which terminal. To do that we will reference this flat part of the connector here.

So with the flat side pointed down we can see that the red wire is here and the black wire is going here. Remember flat side down, red is on the left and black is on the right.

We can go ahead and simply loosen the screws. Ok now we have to take a pair of strippers and strip the outer jacket maybe about half an inch. Be careful not to cut the wires.

Now we want to strip the insulation off the end of the wires here. They are 16 to 20 gauge. Strip off a little bit of the insulation, not too much. Approximately three millimeters is ideal. Twist the wire.

Now we’re going to go back over here, slide this over and put the cable through. Take your connector, again flat side down, turn around red is on the left and black on the right. So flat side down, red on the left. Trim this down a little bit. Take your screwdriver and tighten the black wire.

Ok now we can assemble the connector by holding the connector at the flat side and spinning the end until it’s tight. And now we’re ready to go and hook the LED light up.

So now we’ve cut the wire to the proper length and now we’ll secure the wire with zip ties to the arm and to the back bar. One, two and then the third on the back bar. Now we can go ahead and snip the end of the zip ties.

And there we go. One output of the LED bars is now connected. And we will repeat for the other side.

We are now finished installing, connecting and securing the LED lights, the receiver, and the cables. We cleaned everything up so it has a nice clean look and next step would be to program.

Take your RTS device, in this case the Telis Patio, and select the the proper channel that you want the LEDs to be controlled on, here we will use channel five. Simply connect to the LEDs by pressing up and down and you should get a flash from the lights. Next step simply press the programming button and watch the LEDs flash again and now you are paired.

To control the LEDs you can use the up button to turn them on, the down button to turn them off, and they also are dimmable.

To dim the LEDs you press and hold either direction and you will see the brightness increase if you’re holding up or the brightness decrease if you press and hold down. You can also set your "my" position for your favorite lighting level by simply pressing and holding the "my" button until you get a jog. Ok now that is confirmed.

One additional feature we have also is a three hour time limit and that can be activated or deactivated by pressing and holding all three buttons until you get a confirmation jog. The RTS timer is scheduled by default to be disabled, so if you want to enable the three hour timer, again press and hold all three buttons.