Lights aren't cycling correctly.

[wheelman1976]

I have my daylights set to go on at 11 and off at 8pm and the night lights to come on at 8 and off at 10 but it seems when the day lights go on, they stay on and then won't let the night lights turn on when they're supposed to. Any hints as to why this might be? I changed the night lights to go on a minute after the day lights go off now, so I was going to see how that went. Could it be b/c I have one go off and the other on right at the same time? I'm using 3 cheap chinese LED's that I got with the system.

Also after updating the system on the web it seems like things don't go into effect right away, would that be normal? For example, say it's 9pm and I set the night lights to go on from 8pm to 10pm, after I flash the update though the browser interface, the night lights don't go on (b/c they should be on during that time frame).


I'm totally new to Apex and not super tech literate... I've made it this far that I can manually control it though my browser, just having a hard time with programming things and having them work.

[Alain B]

Post a screen shot of your outlets programming .

[wheelman1976]

Post a screen shot of your outlets programming .

Let me know if you can't see them.

[Alain B]

Sorry post a screen shot of the ACTUAL program registered in the outlet , this is the programming page to be uploaded to the controller .

[wheelman1976]

Sorry post a screen shot of the ACTUAL program registered in the outlet , this is the programming page to be uploaded to the controller .

Pardon my ignorance, but where do i find that info?

[Alain B]

Go to the outlets page and click on those outlets we need to see here . Post a screen shot of the outlets programming .

[zombie]

It's possible the hysteresis and shutdown temp might be an issue. Change the type to advanced and use this code.

Daylights
Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Time 11:00 to 19:59 Then ON


Moonlights
Fallback ON
Set OFF
If Time 20:00 to 21:59 Then ON

[wheelman1976]

Is this considered the outlets page?

[Alain B]

yes so click on those outlets and post a screen shot .

[wheelman1976]

yes so click on those outlets and post a screen shot .

When I click on those, what comes up is the first two pics I posted above.

[Alain B]

Click on the advance mode and it will appear .

[wheelman1976]

Click on the advance mode and it will appear .

Ok, that's what I am not seeing on my screen is an advanced mode link.... What am I missing here?

[Alain B]

Control Type >>>> Advanced .

[wheelman1976]

Here we go!

[wheelman1976]

I just noticed my daylights were 19-20... that's not right, should be 11 (It was, not sure how I changed that). I've changed it back to 11 for on time.

[Alain B]

Change to this :

Daylight

Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Time 11:00 To 20:00 Then ON
If Temp > 81.0 Then OFF

Remove the Min Time statement , it is not needed .

Check also your night light programming ! LOL

[wheelman1976]

Done. How long should it take for a change to take effect? My lights were off and are still off, yet they fall in the range of time they should be on.

[Alain B]

Not more then a few second . remove both min time statement and check your controller clock also .

[wheelman1976]

Ok, strike that last comment. Once I backed out of advanced and changed it to lights again and updated it kicked on the lights. So I should pull that last code line off the night lights and I should be good right?

- - - Updated - - -

Not more then a few second . remove both min time statement and check your controller clock also .

Done, I'll watch tonight to see them cycle off an on and see how it goes. Thanks Alain, I never thought I would see the day I was "not technical" I feel like I'm turning into my father! LOL

[Alain B]

The Min Time statement was used a long time ago when people were using halide fixtures , it is very seldom used nowadays with more recents lightning devices .

[RussM]

You can delete both the Min Time and If Temp lines. The Lights wizard is primarily intended for use with Metal Halide lighting which tends to heats the surface of the water. This is why there is a high temperature shutdown in the wizard-generated programming. Also, MH lamps require a cool-down period after after being turned off before they will re-fire, hence the Min Time statement, which holds the lights off for 30 minutes if they get turned off. Neither of these applies to LEDs, so those two lines are usually not needed. The exception is if you have the LEDs in an unventilated canopy and they make the air inside the canopy hot which in turn heats the heater.

[wheelman1976]

Went to see if things worked on their own at the change over time tonight and found my night lights did not cycle on. Brought my laptop down stair to monkey with things and I am seeing that the lines for temp and min time off that I had removed earlier, are now BACK again. I removed them again, got the night lights to cycle on, but then the day lights wouldn't turn off. Seems I cannot get the removal of those lines from the advanced programming to stay out of there. I remove them, flash the system, go back and they're there again! I gotta say this is quite frustrating as I cannot figure out what the heck I'm doing wrong.

[zombie]

Sounds like corrupt firmware. Reload or update to the newest version.

[wheelman1976]

Ok, since I had the time tonight I started monkeying with it more after that last post. I changed my times to work with the other clock that's showing on my dashboard, the one that is 3 hours behind the one that matches up with my time. Everything now works to the best of my knowledge. So my question is this, why are there two clocks? And I don't recall setting my time zone when I set it up (maybe I did...), why is it not working off the clock that is correct to where I am located?

[RussM]

There are two clocks showing in APEX Fusion most likely because the Apex and your computer are set for different time zones. Since you are in Eastern time zone and the two clocks tiles are 3 hours off, your Apex is most likely still set for the default timezone (Pacific Time). Your Apex should be set to Auto-Set, DST Enabled, and Timezone of -5 for you there in MI.

Using the display menu, go to System> Clock Setup to view and modify the clock settings.