Total on time for a device

[arw01]

With the increase in these $25 to $50 light bulbs with 25000, 30000, 50000 hour "life expenctancy", I would like my ISY to keep a running total per device of how long it has been on. Kept in non-volitile memory so it would not be lost between updates, etc.

 

This way I could tell if my $25.00 bulbs are really lasting 25,000 hours, or if I can claim some warranty because the ISY could give me a log of the number of hours that device was on.

 

Alan

[Xathros]

Alan-

 

This can be done but it is not a pretty solution and if you have lots of bulbs to track it can keep the ISY fairly busy for little benefit. I use this method for tracking runtimes on my Furnace and Pellet stove per day as well as Ocupied vs. Vacant hrs totals for each day - data collection for a long term energy study of my home.

 

Use an integer variable: i.MasterBathLight.life

 

And a Program:

 

If
 Status MasterBathLight >= 1%

Then
  Repeat every 1 minute
  i.MasterBathLight.Life =+ 1
  i.MaterBathLight.Life init to i.MasterBathLight.Life

 

That will track total on time in minutes. Simply divide it by 60 to get Hrs runtime. Not accurate to the second as if the light is on for less than a minute, that won't count and a minute and 59 seconds will only count as a minute. Should average out over the life of a bulb (Thats my theory and I'm stickin with it )

 

Another thought if your a programmer or like playing with data would be to capture the isy log on a daily or weekly basis and parse that data for device On/off times and calculate the usage from that. This would not place the burden on the ISY and may yield more accurate results. Still seems like a lot of hassle either way to track a bulbs life actual vs. advertised.

 

I think if I wanted to do this, I would take this approach:

 

1) Mark each bulb with: Purchase date, Install date, expected lifespan and Install location with a sharpie.

2) Build a few runtime trackers as above for your more active locations.

3) After 1 to 2 months of data collection on those bulbs, calculate the average daily runtime and note that on the bulbs

4) Reset and edit the life tracker variables and programs to move the study to the next few bulbs.

 

Now when a bulb fails, you will have all the necessary data to determine if it ran for it's advertised lifespan right on the bulb.

 

-Xathros

[arw01]

I was thinking that if a power failure, or restart of the ISY or an upgrade to the ISY and therefore a restart, that the variables would be lost with a simple program.

 

I considered also the logging and a simple grep command on the log would pull them all out of there. I do currently write on the bulbs when they were installed, but not the hours etc. That's how I found out the early CFL's were a poor money saving investment as they rarely lasted 2 years at 20x the price of a plain incandescent.

[Xathros]

Alan-

 

The line that reads: "i.MasterBathLight.Life Init To i.MasterBathLight.Life" saves the current value of the mvar to NVRAM in case of power loss/restart etc. When the ISY comes back up, it will Initialize the mvar value to the Init value. My CFL experience was much the same as yours.

 

-Xathros