PIR retrigger

Hi,

Hopefully a simple question. I have a PIR in the utility room, when entering the room the lights come on, however moving around the room doesn't appear to re-trigger the timer. If you are in the room when the timer runs out the lights goes out and then immediatly comes back on again.

The PIR is setup with Night time movement only with everything else being the default settings. Have I miss-understood how the PIR works or does something else need to be setup.

JB

 

Can you post some screen grabs of your setup? Would be interesting to see how you have programmed your unit. Note that both Day and Night time movement to be assigned to the same Group Address to get the behaviour you desire. By default the 2 funtions are linked this way.

 

I've tried up up load some screen shots but no sucess.

Anyway I've been playing a bit. It dawned on me that I have a PIR in the bathroom that functions correctly, so it should be a matter of comparing the two setups and seeing the differences.

The only difference between the two setups (this includes fireware versions) is that the bathroom is setup for both Day and Night movement, whereas the utility is Night time only.

On playing with these settings it turns out that if I set the PIR for Day time movement everything works as I expect and the light says on as long as there is movement in the room. If I set the PIR for Night time movement, the light goes off briefly before being re-triggered.

One other thing that I've spotted is that when both the Day/Night movement is set the red LED constantly blinks, but with Night only it is permenatly lit. Is this normal?

I also discovered something else that is baffeling me. I changed the settings so that Day and Night settings where off and set the Sunset group instead. This produced a strob effect the the light continually turned on and then off, even with no one in the room. Bizzare.

JB

 

The terms "day-time" and "night-time" all refer to the amount of light that the unit is detecting. "night-time" is considered to be a light level BELOW the threshold set by the adjusting screw on the unit. "day-time" is considered to be a light level ABOVE the threshold set by the adjusting screw on the unit.

The desired behaviour is that when you walk into the utility room the unit is in "night-time" light level. When the light turns on it is now in the "day-time" light level. If the unit is set up with the default programming (including the check box on the UI being ticked that says "use same response settings as 'day-time movement') then the unit will turn the light on, start the timer and then any movement will keep re-setting the turn off timer.

If the unit is turning off and then back on again then that suggests that the unit is incorrectly programmed for the "day-time" settings and that it is not re-starting the timer. Make sure you have the aforementioned check box checked, the thingies on the Functions tab are all set to defaults, and on the Blocks Tab both LI and DA are assigned to the same Block/light group address (default is block 2)

 

Okay you have confirmed my understanding how the Day/Night settings work. My guess then is that I have the thresshold on the PIR set too low, so when I set it up for night time only, when the light comes on the PIR now thinks it day time and does offer a re-trigger - until the light goes off.

I'll have to play with the local PIR setting and see what happens.

JB

 

Spot on. We usually rotate the light level pot to enable the PIR to work for all light levels (full anti clockwise I think - always seem to forget which way) then if you need to stop the PIR for any reason we use the enable / disable GA feature.

In any case feel free to come back to the front of the class.

 

sorry to bring this topic up again but i am having problems getting my kitchen PIR to work as I wish.

1st thing is I only want it to work when its dark detected by its own sensor.
2nd, if it keeps detecting movement then it should keep re-triggering the timer.

i think my problem is when the kitchen lights come on then it is no longer night and so the re-triggering is not working causing the lights to time out and go off, even if I am moving around in the kitchen. It is then dark so the next movement brings them back on.

Is there any way I can get the operation I want, so once DA has been triggered it accepts re-triggering even if its then in LI mode because the lights are on?

 

I think you'll find that if you re-set the unit back to factory defaults in Toolkit, reassign the desired group address to the unit and then save you'll get the behaviour you're looking form.

Once you've done this, adjust the light level threshold pot so that the PIR turns the lights on at the desired ambient light level. Set the threshold too high and the PIR will be turning the light on all the time. Set the threshold too low and it will never turn it on. Set it just right, as Goldilocks would say, and you'll have it turning the light on, and keeping it on, at just the right level.

 

ok, i will experiment with the light setting.

but for me to fully understand how it works, when I find the optimal light setting that just pushes it into night mode, why when the lights come on would it not go back to day mode and stop the re-triggering? is there some kind of difference in how it senses normal daylight compared to halogen light?

also please confirm the only setting I should be using is the DA settings with "same response settings as 'day-time movement'" turned off?

Cheers

 

If you have a look at the functions you will see that in daylight mode the sensor will retrigger.

Its dark, so the sensor is in nightmode, you walk past the sensor and an ON command is sent. Now its light in the room so the sensor is now in daylight mode, you walk past the sensor again but this time a re-trigger command is issued resetting the timer.

Yep. Leave this alone and it should all work fine.

 

Listen to filpee

 

yeah working nicely now, many thanks,

even worked out how to make the LED1 start flashing again on movement.