Sunrise / Sunset Events

[bkenobi]

I've searched the forum, but none of the threads I found seem to help fix my Tasks.

I have some outdoor lights that I want to control on at 5am and off at sunrise and then again on at dusk and off at 11pm. I've been able to get the evening task to fire correctly by using the same task as is defined in the video tutorial, however my morning task doesn't seem to work. Here's my logic that I'm using:

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If ( 'System Time.TimeAndDate' is Equal '5:15 am' ) And
  If ( 'System Time.Weekday' is Equal '1' ) And
  If ( 'System Time.Sunrise Indicator' is Equal '0' ) Then
    Change 'X10 - Deck Lights.Power State' to 'On'
Else If ( 'System Time.TimeAndDate' is Equal '3/2/2009 6:46:00 am' ) Then
  Change 'X10 - Deck Lights.Power State' to 'Off'

I tried using Less than sunrise instead of Sunrise Indicator, but that didn't seem to work either.

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If ( 'System Time.TimeAndDate' is Equal '3/2/2009 5:55:pm' ) Then
  Change 'X10 - Deck Lights.Power State' to 'On'
Else If ( 'System Time.TimeAndDate' is Equal '11:00 pm') Then
  Change 'X10 - Deck Lights.Power State' to 'Off'

I set this task up yesterday and the evening event fired correctly (both on and off). I checked this morning and the morning event did NOT fire. Any suggestions?

NOTE: Both morning and evening tasks are set to use sunrise/sunset variables and are not hard coded as it appears here.


UPDATE 3/2/2009 PM: I checked the log this afternoon when I arrived home and it looks like the morning sunrise portion did fire. So, something must be messed up with my logic for the morning lights on statement. I'm going to keep working on it, but I wish there was an easier way to debug which portions of the logic were met. Maybe I just missed that option somewhere...I'll keep at it.

[ScottBot]

I don't see anything wrong with the second example. Seems like it should work. The first example won't turn them on if it is a weekend (and your post was on Monday).

[bkenobi]

I spent a bunch of time last night playing with the code. After working on it, I think the problem was that certain trigger values don't update as often as I expected. I ended up changing the order of the code and combining the 2 tasks into one larger one. My current code looks at the weekday flag, then sunrise indicator, then finally the time of day. I put the evening stuff in the same way as initially just using 'else if' blocks.

I changed the date and time on the PC and found that some values only update when the code sees the time roll over midnight (sunrise/sunset times, weekday indicator, etc.). If I let the code roll over midnight and then adjusted times, things worked as expected. If I didn't, then results were confusing until I checked the System Time device (that's what gave it away).

Anyway, although I got it working, I was expecting to be able to tell when it ran the code and did not match a criteria. I now understand that if it did that, it would be posting every second, but that still might have helped. Would I be better off using a script for this stuff? I would like to have an offset on the sunrise and sunset times so that lights aren't on when it's light outside, but to do that in a task looks difficult if not impossible. I searched around and didn't find any script examples for something similar. Is it possible for someone to post a sample of turning lights on if it's sunset?

Thanks!

[Osler]

See here:

http://www.cebotics.com/forums/viewtopi ... &sk=t&sd=a

Osler