Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[cantbreak80]

   AHP 3.228

   Porch Light Illumination

   My front door and staircase is really dark so I’ve always run the porch lights dusk-to-dawn with a ”dumb-old” Leviton wall switch timer.
   The timer doesn’t know about DST or that day/night occurs differently throughout the year, so, I frequently have to change the settings
   and I get to replace the burned-out lamps every 6 months or so.

   I dislike the bright glare of those lights…especially since they’re really for visitors and pizza delivery guys.  So, I considered installing a
   dimmer on my front porch lights or a couple of those nasty motion sensor lights that many of my neighbors use…until I got AHP.

   My AHP format:
   I use Flag 1 to control all X10 dusk to dawn operations…it reduces the number of programmed timers, avoids timer conflicts, and
   crossing midnight issues that I’ve experienced.

   House Codes:
       Flags [F]
       Macros[M]
       Outside devices

Components:
       AM486 on F1 (Phantom Module used as a manual override and monitor)
       MS14A on M9 (Eagle Eye on Macro M9 because I have no RF remotes for HC O)
       WS467 on O1 (Wall Switch)

   Timers:
       F1 ON at Dusk and OFF at Dawn Daily
       M9 OFF at Dusk + 1 min
       O1 OFF at Dawn – 10 min.

   Macros:
       Porch Dim
       Trigger Conditions M9 Off and
       Flag Status On -1
       End Trigger Conditions
       Turn Porch Lights ON and Dim to 30%

   Porch Bright
       Trigger Conditions M9 On and
       Flag Status On -1
       End Trigger Conditions
       Brighten Porch Lights by 99%

   Flag 1 Set
       F1 On
       Set Flags [1]

   Flag 1 Clear
       F1 Off
       Clear Flags [1]


   Now, the lights come on at dusk and immediately dim to 30% brightness.  If I’m lucky enough to have a night visitor, the lights
   brighten fully as they approach the stairs.  One minute after they’ve entered the house or walked back to
   their delivery-dim back to 30%.  Finally, at 10 minutes before dawn, the porch lights extinguish.

   I’m considering adding a WS467 to the foyer light…M9 On and Off would mirror the porch lights providing me with an interior
   nightlight AND an early visual warning that “PIZZA’S HERE!”

[cantbreak80]

Uh...well...my early pizza warning system has just revealed a flaw in my system.

I added the foyer light to the macro, poured a evening beverage, sat back in front of the TV and within 5 minutes the foyer brightened.

I braced for the doorbell and the resulting "WOOF-WOOF-ARFF-ARFF" and the mad dash of the dogs racing towards the front door.

One minute later the foyer lights dimmed and no doorbell.  Huh?  Maybe just a happenstance?

Then, as I watched the evening news, the foyer lights brightened and dimmed 8 or 9 more times.  OK...that's not a happenstance...and surely some neighborhood kid isn't just messing with that new light that gets bright all by itself...is he?

So, I release the clinch my recliner has on me and go investigate.  I stand at the open doorway waiting for the lights to brighten, trying to observe the rascal who's setting off my MS.  About 2 minutes goes by and one of my neighbors drives by, arriving home from work.  The porch light brightens.  Several more minutes and another neighbor...the lights brighten.

It's dark...all my neighbors are coming home from work...their cars are setting off my system...from 50' away!  If I hadn't added the inside light, I would have never known.

I guess I need to find a better location for the Eagle Eye.

[bitman]

Mmmmmm.....Pizza 

[HA Dave]

..... I guess I need to find a better location for the Eagle Eye.

I could never get good results in my front yard with the "eye" sensors.. because of traffic. I do however get great results with the floodlight sensor (PR511).

Also... although I understand that dimming the light is nicer to the neighbors... Dimming doesn't reduce power usage by much at all. You could however replace your porchlights with (naturally dimmer) LED lights. The directional (downward) lighting is good there for LED's. I use two each 3 1/2 watt LED's by my door.

Then use something like a floodlight (PR511) for the pizza guy.

[stoney]

... Dimming doesn't reduce power usage by much at all.

Actually, Less voltage and less current mean less power usage. You're power bill is based on how much power you use for how long.
Therefore, aside from using those CFL's, dimming is a good thing!

[HA Dave]

.... Less voltage and less current mean less power usage. You're power bill is based on how much power you use for how long.
Therefore, ... dimming is a good thing!

Yeah... my dimmed lights use the same voltage as the undimmed lights. And the dimming device burns off much of the wasted current as dissipated heat. There are charts that show just how tiny the cost/electric savings are. But if I remember correctly a bulb 1/2 dimmed still draws more than 75% of the electric of same bulb... undimmed.

Rheostats were really cool new gadget additions back in the 50's. Even new homes had terrible wiring [back then] and lighting generally sucked. Often a room would have one really large wattage bulb in a fixture at the ceilings center... the rheostat made dining in the kitchen less like eating in an operating room.

Don't get me wrong... there isn't anything wrong with using a dimmer. It has it's place. However, good lighting requires much more fore-thought than adding a dimmer. Really good lighting... generally speaking (typing?) will require many more fixtures. In the past.... the crappy part of having several fixtures was running around turning lights on and off. Automation resolves that problem

[rizallionc]

cantbreak80 thank you again for clearing it up for me, finally got a better understanding on the whole flag concept.