Lighting Automation

The Problem

The existing lighting in the hackspace is a real mess. Switching is all over the place and its hard to get hold of replacement tubes for the massive fittings. The current lighting is split across 9 switches/zones.

The Fix

This summer's big hackspace infrastructure project is to rewire the lighting throughout the whole space. Of course being a hackspace we are adding our own techno touch to this job?:) Thanks to an unnamed member we have a growing stock of second hand fittings that will be used to replace the existing 8ft fittings. The plan to rewire also includes a move to better zoning of the lights and will call for 17 zones over the existing 9. This quick plan shows the various zone that will be individually controllable

The Tech

Now being a hackspace good old fashioned light switches are just not going to cut it. So it was suggested that we could build an integrated system by having the lights wired back to central control boards, fitted with contractors and relays. These relays can of course be switched by an Arduino or other micro and giving us ultimate control over the hackspace lights. The Light switches around the hackspace will be replaced with micros and pushbuttons Having micro's in the systems means we can easily do multi-way switching and not just from custom control boards but also from webpages or mobile apps  

Control Box

Each control box will house contactors, relays and a networked micro-controller. A contactor is a 240v electrically controlled switch, like a relay but for much higher current Each contactor is switched via a 12vdc relay, which in turn is switched via an arduino and MOSFET setup 5vdc Relays would remove the need for the MOSFET but they are much harder to acquire and cost a lot more Micro-controller in each control board is likely to be a Xino (arduino clone) and a Wiznet Ethernet shield Again thanks to generous donations we have 17 contactors and relay holders already at the space. The 12vdc relays will be ordered from rapid code 60-0905, along with appropriate MOSFETs