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Re: False Light Cycles

Rob,

I haven't seen such an arrangement sold commercially, but you could do as I
did and buy a photodetector and wire it up to do as you suggest.  I have
outside walk lights that I wanted to come on as soon as it got dark and
then turn off at 11 PM each night.  I set the timer  to come on at 4 PM and
then the photodetector takes over and as soon as it gets dark enough the
lights come on until 11.  I don't know why this isn't available
commercially, it seems like the logical way to do it, at least to me.

A similar situation presents itself in my greenhouse.  I want to have the
temperature automatically set itself back a set number of degrees at
sundown and then turn itself up again at sunrise.  This more closely
approximates natural conditions.  All the controllers I've seen are based
on timers and continually need resetting to do what I want.  It's a project
that is in the design stage and with the coming of spring will now have to
wait until cool weather returns this fall.  

Dan 


At 15:06 4/8/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Hello. I am coming to terms more and more with plants whose seeds "just
>do not respond to any artificial conditions" and I take it to be sage
>advice that I've gotten about this.
>
>However, I'm still holding on to the idea that what is wrong in part may
>be that that the indoor lights being on timers are on X number of hours
>and that's it, which is pretty unnatural. Manual adjustments end up very
>abrupt.
>
>Does anyone have any experience or information in the area, including
>any source of equipment with a photodetector that can sense the outdoor
>light and control the indoor lights to re-create it? (Preferrably
>affordable)
>
>I have only seen photosensor systems for home security that have an
>on-off function, nothing with a dimmer or simply a system like I
>mentioned.
>
>                                       TIE (Thanks in Excess)
>
>                                        Rob
>
>
>
____________________________________________________________________________
Dan Sorensen      dan@penn.com            |Penn State Master Gardener
Russell, PA       dsorense@psupen.psu.edu |  Ham Radio WB8VEF    
God's country in NW Pennsylvania.         |

Check out my Experimental Gardening web page at
http://users.penn.com/~dan/index.html

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