Simmtronic lighting control is common in London office buildings, particularly larger City floors. It handles switching, dimming, presence detection and often emergency lighting across a whole floor. When it works, nobody notices it. When it fails, whole zones go dark, lights stay on all night or the emergency lighting tests stop reporting.
We look after Simmtronic systems in occupied offices, mostly for facilities managers and M&E contractors. This post explains the faults we see most often and what to expect when you call someone in.
How a Simmtronic floor fits together
The detail varies by building and installation date, but most floors have the same parts:
- Light fittings and sensors in the ceiling, each with its own address on the system.
- Area controllers that look after a zone of fittings and sensors.
- A bus network that links the controllers and devices across the floor. On the systems we work on this is the M-Bus.
- A head-end PC (and the T-Bus cable that connects it), which is where the system is monitored, programmed and where emergency lighting results are logged.
Most faults come down to one of these parts losing power, losing communication or losing its programming.
The faults we see most often
Part of a floor stops responding
This is the most disruptive fault. On one City floor we attended, around half the devices had stopped responding. Reconnecting the obvious cable didn’t bring them back, so we lifted the raised-floor tiles and traced the M-Bus cable along its route until we found a damaged connection that was shorting the network. Once it was repaired, every device was tested before the tiles went back down.
The lesson: when a large group of devices drops off at once, the cause is usually in the network cabling or a controller, not in the individual fittings.
The head-end PC has been moved or switched off
Office moves, IT changes and desk reshuffles often catch out the head-end PC. On the same floor, the PC had been moved out of the comms rack to a new desk and its cable dropped out of the containment. We fitted new trunking to protect and secure the cable in its new position. If the head-end goes offline, the lights may carry on working, but you lose monitoring and emergency lighting reporting.
A new fitting or emergency light won’t join the system
Adding a fitting during a refit is easy to wire and harder to commission. It needs to be addressed and programmed into the existing configuration. When we added an extra emergency light on a Simmtronic floor, we worked with Simmtronic’s aftersales team on the programming and parts so the new fitting behaved like the rest of the floor.
Lights stuck on, or switching at the wrong times
This is usually a sensor, a scene or a schedule problem rather than a wiring fault. A failed presence detector, or one that has lost its address, can leave a zone on all night or off during the day.
Why most of this work happens out of hours
Fault-finding often means isolating circuits, lifting floor tiles and switching zones on and off. On a working floor that is disruptive, so we usually attend early in the morning or at the weekend, with RAMS sent in advance and any access to risers and plant rooms agreed with building management.
Working with Simmtronic
Some jobs need the manufacturer’s software, licences or a site visit from their engineers. Where that’s the case, we arrange it with Simmtronic and do the on-site work ourselves, such as cable tracing, repairs, replacement parts and testing. That keeps the cost down and means you have one contractor managing the job.
Need help with a Simmtronic system?
We repair, maintain and extend lighting control systems in offices across London, including Simmtronic, Prolojik, Legrand and DALI systems. See our commercial lighting controls service or call 020 8227 0035.
We also look after emergency lighting and general commercial electrical work in the same buildings.