Lighting control

[jeepmadmike]

I love to make things complicated but i was wondering if anyone does things like this! PIRs are so simple....

i have build / programmed a clever control system for my outside / garage lights

What it does

LED down lighters (in archways at the front of the house) are on when its dark between 05.00 and 23.00

Flood light has a push button which for each push of the button it stays on for 5 Minutes so if i push it 4 times it stays on for 20minutes

Garage lights have another button (one in house and one in garage) which turns on the garage lights and also if its dark the flood light and garage outside lights are turned on for a few minutes (so i can walk there without falling over toy cars bikes etc).
the same button turns off the garage lights but if its dark the outside lights turn on first and delays the garage lights turning off for a few seconds.

 

[Taylortwocities]

Big deal,

and your question is???

 

[jeepmadmike]

Big deal,

and your question is???

As i stated in the first line of text I just wondering if other people do it.
i do alot of PLC programming so the soft where was no big deal

i was going to install some 2 way switching but decided that was very old skool and i already had the smart relay driving the outside light and LED down lights

Thanks for your diss anyway!

 

[Steve]

jeep, I'd be keen to hear more about this system. What components? What sort of programming does it involve? Cheers.

 

[jeepmadmike]

I used a Telemecanique Zelio Smart Relay / Baby PLC it uses either Ladder logic program code (which is like drawing a wiring diagram) or function block programming which is a bit of a mixture of logic gates, timers, mathematical functions etc

ladder logic is dead easy to use if your from an electrical back ground

function blocks took me a while to get my head around but are great for some things, i used them for this system after i started with ladder and decided it was getting silly.

There is alot of info on PLCs on PLCs.net

 

[Taylortwocities]

Strowger, now there's a man who knew about process and logic...

 

[davelx]

Ladder programming - now that takes me back to one of my early jobs, where we used Allen Bradley PLCs.

 

[Stoday]

Recession hitting you badly or something?

These days a few 9W energy saving lamps left on all night give you light and security, without all that faffing about. Set dusk to dawn they're on for 4000 hours a year, so a 9W lamp will cost less then £5 a year.

If you want a programming challenge, program a microcontroller to switch dusk to dawn instead of using a photocell.

 

[OwainDIYer]

Haven't you got a remote control so you can turn them on from inside the car? Or is that handled by PIRs?

 

[holmslaw]

..

 

[OwainDIYer]

The simplest way of controlling stair case lighting is a pull switch on the top floor with a cord long enough to reach the ground floor.

Thats how they did it in the empire state building because 2 way switches had'nt been invented.

Empire State Building construction 1930-1931.

The Modern Plumber & Sanitary Engineer, dated sometime between 1907 and 1920-something (my coped edited by R H Bew) includes two-way and intermediate switching.

I know American wiring is a bit backward at times, but I think they'd have had two-way swicthing, even if they called it three-way.

 

[holmslaw]

..

 

[OwainDIYer]

No s*** sherlock, I admit my post was not the funniest ever posted, but do you have a sense of humour?

Yes. I sometimes delight in taking things literally when the speaker least expects it.

So do you reckon they had a two way switch at the bottom and a two way switch at the top and one hundred intermediates in between?

No, I reckon they split the lighting into sections and used Marvel switches. Or, quite likely, mercury relays.

My idea is a lot simpler. But I wonder how much 102 stories of pull cord weighs, perhaps thats what prompted someone to invent 2 way switches.

~381 metres high x the weight per metre of nylon pull cord.

The stretchiness of the cord would probably be a problem further away from the switch.

 

[Steve]

The stretchiness of the cord would probably be a problem further away from the switch.

Surely it would be more of a problem closer to the switch, where there is more weight on it?

 

[OwainDIYer]

The stretchiness of the cord would probably be a problem further away from the switch.

Surely it would be more of a problem closer to the switch, where there is more weight on it?

The switch would have to be adjusted to cope with the static weight of the cord, but the stretch will increase with the length of the cord and will place additional sudden load on the switch mechanism. The principle is the same as 'snatch straps' used for vehicle recovery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snatch_strap