In this building, there is a very rudimentary lighting control system. It consists of a timer (24h), several ice cube relays, timer modules and various push buttons around the floor that control different zones.
The way that it currently works is as follows:
- When the main timer is in ON mode, all the lights are on, on the entire floor (500 -4 lamp T8 fluorescent fixtures)
- When the main power timer is in OFF mode, all the lights except for emergency lighting are off.
- Now, if you enter the building and want to have light in a particular area, you press a button corresponding to the zone you want light in. This will turn the light on and start a timer (currently set at an hour) and then turn off after that time elapses.
- If another zone is turned on, say 30 minutes later, they will all turn of at the end of the hour of the first button push.
it has been almost exactly a year since i posted the original post. I have decided to start working on this project. My intentions are as follow:
ReplyDelete6 zones on the second floor
6 zones on the first floor
There are push buttons for each zone. (think doorbells)
I will install a motion sensor in each zone. (this will work well for the second floor but may require more per zone on the first as it doesnt have an open floor plan.
The motion sensor that i will be using will be a ceiling mount wide angle, long range sensor.
The plan will be to use a propeller board to act as the lighting controller. It will be interfaced to the network via a Parallax spinneret.
The controller will have an RTC that will keep time. Each zone will have the ability to have its own time schedules.
In the event that the lights are in the off state:
a read from the motion sensor will turn that zone back on for 15 minutes.
a button press will turn the zone on for 1 hour.
If the button is pressed a second time while the lights are are but outside of the scheduled time, the lights will turn back off for that zone