Light Control

[seedar]

Hi,

I would like to be able to control an outside light with the controller in addition to the solenoids. I assume I could do that now if I added an external 24v AC relay to switch it and program it as a separate "Program" in the schedule ? I haven't experimented but I suspect the scheduling would be a little messy though with the current UI having to turn off stacking etc ?

rgds,
Seedar.

[bluespray_admin]

We just treat a terminal as a zone.  You can connect anything that runs on 24V AC to it.  Yes, you'd want to run in concurrent mode to turn on multi lights at the same time.  Programming is a bit tricky, but it can be done.

[seedar]

I have a 16 zone controller but currently only using 8 and I have two questions:

1. Can I not see anymore than 8 zones in the UI because the second 8 are not connected ?
2. Are the second 8 zones isolated from the first 8 - and therefore I could supply 12V DC for the second 8 if they are controlling only lighting ?

thanks !
Seedar.

[bluespray_admin]

If you have a 16 zone controller, you can add (drag the sprinkler head) up to 16 zones.

Yes, the expander board can be powered by a 12V power source independently, but it's already wired up to the 24V source.  Also, each of the terminal can handle up to 4A, and depends on how many lights you have it might exceed the amperage ratings.  How many lights do you have and how do you want to program them?

Theoretically, it can be done, but we have not tested it and cannot support it.

[seedar]

Thanks, just to clarify the expander board is already connected to 24V AC source, so what is pin 1 for on that connector, is that not the feed to all zone outputs that get switched to the solenoids ? Or is that for something else ?

Thanks.

[bluespray_admin]

The 1st pin on the expander board is power.  Pin 1-8 on the expander board is for zones (or solenoids) #9 through #16 or any thing that can be turn on/off with 24V AC.

We have tried to power an expander board with a 12V AC transformer and connect a 12V AC light to each of the terminals on the expander board and were able to turn it on with a separate program for lights.  But that was just an experiment to see the controller's capability, and it is something we'll certainly look into in the near future.

[seedar]

When you say power for the expander board - what I am trying to understand is whether you mean power just for switching to the zone outputs OR power to actually run the expander board logic ?

Because, if the power pin 1. is just supplying the 24v AC to the zone outputs this is ideal as it would allow presumably variable voltage and also DC to be switched to the zones if the expander board logic is actually powered from the main board of the bluespray. This would seem to make sense as you then only have to rectify the AC power to DC and regulate to the right logic voltage level once.

rgds,
Seedar.

[bluespray_admin]

The power to the expander board is to just switch on/off the terminal, and it's AC only.