| Scheduling - Time/Date and Astronomical |
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Control Solutions' AddMe III and AddMe Jr. i.CanDoIt servers include battery backed real time clock/calendars. The most significant feature supported by this clock/calendar is scheduling.
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A very quick tutorial on setting up Modbus Scheduling in i.CanDoIt®
Suppose you want the lights in the parking lot to come on half hour before sunset, and go off half hour after sunrise. One way to do that is use a time clock and reset it a few times a year. The better way to do that with i.CanDoIt® is use the astronomical clock. Instead of on and off times, you simply say "dawn" and "dusk" with an optional offset.
In this example, we set register #11 half hour before sunset, and clear it half hour after sunrise. Our hardware configuration determined that register #11 is allocated to Relay 3, which we have wired to control the parking lot lights. Register #12, Relay 4, shows how to do it the old way.
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All scheduling functions are register or object based. This means the result of schedule events is setting values in registers or BACnet objects. Because of this generic register based approach, you can cause the schedule to directly control I/O, indirectly interact with user programs, or change alarm setpoints. When gateway functions are configured, you can even change setpoints or control I/O in remote devices.
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A very quick tutorial on setting up BACnet Scheduling in i.CanDoIt®
Scheduling works the same for BACnet. The only difference is that, instead of referencing Modbus holding registers, you reference BACnet objects. Since we are talking about a switching application here, the most likely object type would be Binary Output as illustrated here.
In this example, we set BO 1 half hour before sunset, and clear it half hour after sunrise. Our hardware configuration determined that BO 1 is allocated to Relay 3, which we have wired to control the parking lot lights. BO 2, Relay 4, shows how to do it the old way.
The above example shows two scheduled events that will happen every day of the week because all days are checked. If you wish the weekly event to only occur on Saturday, for example, you would only check the "S" box at the end of the string of boxes. For weekdays only, you would check M through F (Monday through Friday).
The astronomical clock requires knowing where in the world you are. The clock setting page found at System->Setup->Time & Date includes a section for setting location.
Once the internal battery backed clock and calendar have been set, and you have entered latitude, longitude, and time zone, the clock setting page will show you when the system has calculated sunrise and sunset to be at this location.
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On Demand Scheduling using Time/Date or Astronomical Clocks
Sometimes it is desirable to schedule something to happen just once at a specific time and date. This is done with "on demand" scheduling. You simply specify a starting time and date, and ending time and date, and the given register will be set accordingly during that time.
In this example, we are opening the parking lot gate on two consecutive dates. Our parking lot is normally closed on weekends, but we are sponsoring a special event requiring the use of our parking lot on two consecutive Saturdays. Fill in your own favorite example here.
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| This is one of several Applications pages that may now be found on our web site. It is our goal to continue adding more applications information over time to help you find new tips, techniques, and helpful information for using our network and Internet enabled devices. We welcome your feedback. Please email support@csimn.com with your suggestions about how we can help you more effectively. If you have technical questions that you would like a response to, please open a support ticket - start by clicking Support above. |
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