Audio Systems | Structured Wiring | Home Theater | Lighting Control | Video Distribution | Home Integration
A lighting control system is a system of high voltage lighting and power that is managed by a low voltage control system or processor. The primary reasons for designing and building a custom lighting control system are aesthetics, convenience, and energy savings.
Aesthetics come into play on two fronts: one, in most cases a lighting control device has a better sense of design and higher level of craftsmanship than a traditional wall switch or dimmer, and two, the lighting control system can use a low voltage keypad in place of a series of side by side high voltage switches of dimmers.
Convenience in a lighting control system can take many forms, some more obvious than others.
Standard light switches don’t have labels, lighting control keypads do. In a part-time home or a situation where guests maybe be in the home for the first time, labels can make finding the control for the light that needs to be operated faster and easier.
If a large room has four or five sets of lights, a keypad can be programmed to turn on several of these lights together in sequence to a preset level. Practical examples of this would be a button programmed for “Dinner” which might bring the lighting levels in the Dining Room to an appropriate ambiance for eating while a button programmed for “Clean Up” might bring those same lights on to full brightness for clearing the dishes.
Remembering to turn off all the lights in a home before going to bed or leaving to go out of town can be irritating. Keypad buttons can be programmed to cause whole house scenes to be engaged. It is often common to program an “All Off” button in a lighting control system to turn out all the lights. This kind of programming can be immensely useful for end users and maintenance staff alike.
The pinnacle of convenience is when things that need to happen do so without anyone telling them to. One does not have to tell an ice maker to make more ice. A lighting control system can be programmed to maintain lighting in this same way. A common example is outdoor lighting. The system might check several times during the daylight hours to see if the outdoor lighting has been inadvertently turned on. The system would then turn them off. The system will know what time the sun sets based on astronomical calculations and bring the outdoor lighting on slowly as the daylight fades, and then turning them back off again at a preset time.
Energy savings benefits from lighting control systems have mostly to do with light level management through automated programming. In most cases people do not need 100% of the light output of a given fixture for most tasks. CAV always incorporates programming that defaults lighting levels to 85% of maximum. This type of programming is commonly referred to as light level tuning.
According to a study done by the New York Times, light level tuning can account for 58% of potential energy savings. Daylight harvesting and taking advantage of natural light accounts for 30%. Occupancy sensing accounts for 10% and programmed scheduling accounts for 2%.
Much of the aesthetic pleasure and energy saving benefits of a lighting control system are dependent on the compatibility of dimming hardware and the fixture to be dimmed. Some fixtures, such as LED fluorescent lighting, may not be dimmable without special interface hardware. It is imperative that the lighting control specialist and lighting designer communicate at the design phase about these issues.
The people involved in a lighting control project can make or break the success of the end product. Typically the people involved are the end user, the general contractor, the electrician, lighting designer (or architect), and the lighting control specialist.
The process begins with an initial lighting plan by the lighting designer or architect. Typically the lighting plan will be a scale drawing showing both fixtures and wall switch locations. In designing a lighting plan for a lighting control system it is a good practice to mentally separate this plan into a “fixture” plan and a “switching” plan. It is in the switching plan that the control devices for the lighting control system will be defined. It is best for the lighting control specialist and the lighting designer to collaborate on this.
When it comes to installation, the electrician will be responsible for installing all fixtures and other high voltage power elements in the home as normal, and the lighting control specialist would install all of the low voltage components of the lighting control system. The lighting control specialist will provide a detailed switching plan and other installation information to the electrician while. The lighting control specialist will also assist in tracking the status of a project, acting as a communications hub, and provide technical assistance to everyone working on the project. During the course of the project the lighting control specialist will keep the general contractor up to date on the status of the system and review any issues that crop up during project install.
As the system nears completion, it is typically best for the end user and the lighting control specialist to interface directly in order to customize the control programming. In the past CAV has found it best to program a system in a generic fashion that makes sense given the home’s layout, and then allow the client to experiment and request changes based on his or her personal habits. Typically a meeting or walk through of the working system is done during the day and then a second walkthrough is done some time later after dark, as lighting needs change based on these times. In most cases 85% of the programming is finished at the time the system is brought online. 15% is changes and augmentations that occur once the client has had a chance to push buttons. Typically a home owner will ask our lighting specialist to come back to the home after a few months of living in the home to make a few slight changes that were not immediately obvious.
CAV considers shading and curtain systems to be a part of lighting control. The light coming into a home during the day through windows and skylights can be managed in the same way as the rest of a home’s lighting. The wall control ideology, macro control, and energy saving benefits defined above also apply to shading systems. Window treatments can be in three forms:
In most installations CAV can use a silent motor for these shades. This keeps disturbances to the end user minimal when the system is automatically moving the shades at certain times of the day.
Roller shades have three basic fabric types to consider: Sheer, Privacy, and Blackout. These names refer to the openness factor, or the amount of light permitted to pass through the shade; sheer being very easy to see through, blackout allowing no light to pass though, and privacy being somewhere in between. Within these three fabric types are a multitude of fabric and color options available for selection.
Dual Roller Systems are sometimes requested for certain areas. Dual roller means exactly what one might think, two rollers for one window. The advantage of this would be having two different fabrics for a window. Typically a dual roller system will have one sheer shade that will allow a fair bit of light to pass through without blocking the view from the window, while the other roller will have a privacy or blackout fabric that can be dropped to obscure the view inside the home. This is usually a good solution for the “bathroom with a view” situation.
