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Bug Zapper Programming Help Needed


nickcat

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Posted

I wrote a program to control my Bug Lights around the house (I live in a VERY dense mosquito population area) but it doesn't seem to be working any longer, which is kind of irrelevant as I think my original logic sucked anyway.

 

The Bug Zappers are plugged into 2456 Outdoor ApplianceLincs.

 

All I'm looking to accomplish is to control the light with the given parameters:

 

1) On 1 our before sunset, and 1 hour after sunrise

2) During those hours, it will only be on if the outside temp is above 50F (I have the weatherbug module for temp)

3) I'm in Massachusetts and temp at night can start above 80 and drop below 50 through the night, so I would like the program to self monitor and if during the scheduled time temp goes below 50 to turn the unit off (or back on in the reverse scenario)

4) I would like to have the light turn off if it's raining, but also turn back on after it stops

 

The rough program I had was checking every 10 minutes for temp during the scheduled runtime each night. At that 10 minute check it would temp and turn the light off or on by running the then/else in a control program, then wait another 10 to check the temp again and adjust as needed. It was just too dumb and simple and many times the light would never shut off or never turn on. So my logic was without question flawed.

 

Any help, or point to the right HowTo/Example, would be greatly appreciated.

Posted

nickcat, any luck with this yet?

 

I understand the mosquito problem,

 

A simple program similar to what I used to be running would look like this,

 

If
       From    Sunset  - 60 minutes
       To      Sunrise + 60 minutes (next day)
   And Module 'Climate' Temperature >= 50 °F

Then
   Set Scene 'Outside / Outside Outlets' On

Else
   Set Scene 'Outside / Outside Outlets' Off    

 

This will send the on/off command at beginning and end of schedule and every time weather bug updates.

I had my Weather Bug update every half an hour (or 1,800 secs)

 

You could try adding a rain rate condition, but I didn't since my closest station is miles away, and even a local one would probably take a little more tweaking (either way try it without it first).

 

I now have a much more complicated program that only sends commands when it changes or status doesn't match and it needs to retry.

 

-Nick

Posted

That's pretty much exactly what I wound up with... the only thing I added, but I'm not sure it's working properly (haven't had rain when I'm around to test it though) is:

 

AND Module 'Climate' Rain Rate < 0.1

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Since I live in a mosquito-free (and almost rain-free) area, perhaps this is a silly question but do you really want them to remain on all through the night?

Posted

Ok I have a solution

 

Program 1

If one hour before sunset or one hour after sunrise

Then

Run check weather program

Run check to turn on or off program

Wait 15minutes

Rerun this program

 

Checkweather program

If temp is a <=50 or it's raining

Then

Set mosquito variable to 0

Else

Set mosquito variable to 1

 

Turn on or off light program

If mosquito variable =1

Then turn on mosquito zapper

 

Else turn off zapper

End program

 

This should work for you

 

 

---

- Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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