using luminance to control lighting gains?

[normwheatley]

Hi,

In MacroFlo, you can set a window to open when the room gets too hot (eg over 24 C). This is jolly useful.

But, is there any way that I can make the lights come on if the room gets too dark? Or do I have to just use a lighting profile and somehow figure out when the room is bright enough to avoid using energy on the lighting? This is a pain as it means that I have to take the seasons into account as well as the time of day and even then it's only approximate.

thnaks
Norm

[ZapBran]

yeah - use an illuminance sensor.

[ZapBran]

little brief there...

Run Radiance sensor calcs (for Apache).
Create a daily profile using a formula that reacts to variable e1.
Reference this profile in a weekly profile.
Use that weekly profile as your dimming control.

[normwheatley]

cool!

I'll do that.

thanks
Norm

[ramzanramza]

just one question.. once the illuminance sensor is used, can we get the value of artificial lighting used to compare the value obtained with or without the illuminance sensor? Can we also used the sensor against daylight - (i mean set it on when certain value of daylight are reached)?

Thanks

[PCully]

Hi,

The illuminance sensor measures daylight in the space only. It is then plugged into Apache to control lighting gains (thermal only) so user can simulate the effects of daylight controlled dimming and measure the energy savings from this.

In Vista you can read the sensor illuminance data to get the daylight levels recorded by the sensor.

Phil