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Motorized blind retrofit

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Dave Horoschak

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May 27, 2006, 11:40:31 AM5/27/06
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Has anyone been able to retrofit existing shades or blinds into
motorized units? I have Hunter Douglas PowerRise blinds which are
battery powered, but I'd like to retrofit them to a wired system for
more reliability and better performance.

Is it possible to purchase just the motors or the headrail assemblies so
that I can reuse my existing material? I know that companies like BTX
and Somfy offer this sort of thing, but their cost to retrofit is about
$300/shade and they won't sell the motors separately. I'm sure I could
do the retrofit if I could get my hands on the appropriate motors.
- Dave

Dave Houston

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May 27, 2006, 1:50:55 PM5/27/06
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What do you mean by "wired"?

Hunter Douglas makes versions that are powered from the mains (using low
voltage wall transformers).

Dave Horoschak

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May 27, 2006, 6:48:49 PM5/27/06
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By wired I mean that I want them to be mains powered and use a hardwired
contact closure to activate. I already have the PowerRise (battery
powered, IR remote control) HD blinds, so I would prefer to just replace
the motors or headrails and keep the blinds themselves. Believe it or
not, HD wants $9000 to convert 11 blinds, which seems outrageous. There
has to be a cheaper way.
- Dave

Si Ballenger

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May 27, 2006, 9:00:46 PM5/27/06
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On Sat, 27 May 2006 18:48:49 -0400, Dave Horoschak
<dth...@comcast.net> wrote:

>By wired I mean that I want them to be mains powered and use a hardwired
>contact closure to activate. I already have the PowerRise (battery
>powered, IR remote control) HD blinds, so I would prefer to just replace
>the motors or headrails and keep the blinds themselves. Believe it or
>not, HD wants $9000 to convert 11 blinds, which seems outrageous. There
>has to be a cheaper way.
> - Dave

If you can provide more info on the origional motors, then
repalcements would be easier to find. The robotics groups and
sites often have links to various types of motors.

Robert Green

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May 27, 2006, 9:44:27 PM5/27/06
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Why don't you get power supplies to replace all the batteries and hot wire
the IR control relays to work via a switches? It wouldn't surprise me if
you found board jumpers or even a connector for a hard-wired switch on the
control unit. It's not unusual to have dual control options on motorized
blinds.

--
Bobby G.


"Dave Horoschak" <dth...@comcast.net> wrote in message
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Dave Houston

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May 28, 2006, 8:53:53 AM5/28/06
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"Robert Green" <ROBERT_G...@YAH00.COM> wrote:

>Why don't you get power supplies to replace all the batteries and hot wire
>the IR control relays to work via a switches? It wouldn't surprise me if
>you found board jumpers or even a connector for a hard-wired switch on the
>control unit. It's not unusual to have dual control options on motorized
>blinds.

Agreed. It certainly should cost less than $9000.

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