I'm looking for a lighting timer that takes daylight savings into account. The lights are high mast at 480VAC. The main breaker (Feeds 2 poles) is 50A, and it is split into 2-25A branches.

So far, I've found Paragon, who doesn't seem to offer a 480V timer, and AB, but they don't offer a timer/contactor package.

Is my only option to purchase a timer and lighting contactor? Or is there a company who makes a 480V timer/contactor combo?

Thanks.

The Schneider Clipsal lighting system does it once you get to the Level 1000 G3 lighting controller or higher.

One very big word of warning though. These things look incredibly powerful and fairly simple to use at the outset. Then as the requirements and "nice to haves" start piling on, you suddenly find yourself running into a situation that the lighting contactor wasn't meant to do and you keep running into all kinds of annoying limitations. It's not bad...just irritating that you didn't just use a real general purpose PLC in the first place

Don't think though for a moment that you need a $10,000 PAC controller just to do lights. There are plenty of "low end" PLC's that do the job, many with Ethernet communications and some can even manage to talk through web pages if you so desire. It is usually easier (for me at least) and more flexible to just go ahead and stick a real PLC out there to send the on/off signals, using a simple set of lighting contactors. With a general processor, you can do anything you want very flexibly, and it doesn't take a major effort to change it later. If you are cost conscious, Allen Bradley sells the "Pico PLC" line for a couple hundred bucks which is not much more than a glorified relay but does include a real time clock. For about $500 US, you can usually get a Micrologix 1100 which is a full fledged Allen Bradley PLC. If AB isn't your cup of tea, the DLxxx series from Automation Direct, or the Red Lion PLC's (available through omega.com) are both less expensive and fairly respectable PLC's in their own right, but I've never used either one so be sure they have real time clocks. If the PLC's interface isn't very friendly, try a Red Lion G3 graphics panel. They are incredibly easy to program and very reasonably priced. The panel itself has a built-in web server (with optional password protection) so that you can operate it from the office instead of going down to the utility closet.

[quote name='paulengr' date='Sep 25 2009, 05:40 PM' post='87524']
[quote name='IamJon' post='87520' date='Sep 25 2009, 01:51 PM']I'm looking for a lighting timer that takes daylight savings into account. The lights are high mast at 480VAC. The main breaker (Feeds 2 poles) is 50A, and it is split into 2-25A branches.

So far, I've found Paragon, who doesn't seem to offer a 480V timer, and AB, but they don't offer a timer/contactor package.

Is my only option to purchase a timer and lighting contactor? Or is there a company who makes a 480V timer/contactor combo?

Thanks.

The Schneider Clipsal lighting system does it once you get to the Level 1000 G3 lighting controller or higher.

One very big word of warning though. These things look incredibly powerful and fairly simple to use at the outset. Then as the requirements and "nice to haves" start piling on, you suddenly find yourself running into a situation that the lighting contactor wasn't meant to do and you keep running into all kinds of annoying limitations. It's not bad...just irritating that you didn't just use a real general purpose PLC in the first place

Don't think though for a moment that you need a $10,000 PAC controller just to do lights. There are plenty of "low end" PLC's that do the job, many with Ethernet communications and some can even manage to talk through web pages if you so desire. It is usually easier (for me at least) and more flexible to just go ahead and stick a real PLC out there to send the on/off signals, using a simple set of lighting contactors. With a general processor, you can do anything you want very flexibly, and it doesn't take a major effort to change it later. If you are cost conscious, Allen Bradley sells the "Pico PLC" line for a couple hundred bucks which is not much more than a glorified relay but does include a real time clock. For about $500 US, you can usually get a Micrologix 1100 which is a full fledged Allen Bradley PLC. If AB isn't your cup of tea, the DLxxx series from Automation Direct, or the Red Lion PLC's (available through omega.com) are both less expensive and fairly respectable PLC's in their own right, but I've never used either one so be sure they have real time clocks. If the PLC's interface isn't very friendly, try a Red Lion G3 graphics panel. They are incredibly easy to program and very reasonably priced. The panel itself has a built-in web server (with optional password protection) so that you can operate it from the office instead of going down to the utility closet. /quote]

Seems to me if you are controlling ambient light levels then you should be sensing light levels. Timers work but it seems you have to adjust them from time to time.
I would consider using light sensing switches. I think instead of buying a package plug n play unit you are much better off to buy top grade compolnents and build your own setup to meet your needs.

Dan Bentler

I did some experimenting with my ML1100 test brick. It took me about an hour to write a 365 day, one event timer using monthly data files with indirect addressing. There's enough memory to build a 6 event timer. I spent a few more hours creating an Excel worksheet that would take local sunrise/sunset data courtesy of the U.S. Navy Observatory Astrononmical Applications Department, and convert it to text that could be pasted into a .SLC file. The times on any given day only vary by a minute from year to year, so any year will do as long as it's a leap year. At this point I leave reproducing the code as an exercise to the reader.

Here's a lighting project that is worthy of a PAC: 98 high mast light poles, each with two 3-pole, 30A, 480V contactors, connected by wireless Ethernet to a central PLC. The PLC controls each contactor on a half hour schedule, or 48 on/off periods per day. The system will be pre-programmed for the next 15 years. I've seen the specs, but we're not doing that job.

Mike

I think what I'm going to do is just get a basic astrological timer coupled with a standard 480V contactor, and have the timer relay activate the contactor. That should do it.

An Allen Bradley "PICO" PLC (smart relay) will work. I believe Omron also sells a similar product. Those will be roughly the same price as a timer relay and less effort to change the functionality on them.