The Miniserver can either use the Internet to set its time or can use the local time on your PC, so there are parameters which are defined in the Times section of the Periphery tree window to use in your program.
INFORMATION
In the Periphery tree window click on the first entry. Here you can enter all the information about your project. As long as you have Internet access when you save the details of the project such as the postcode (put in the entry Town). This will enable the Miniserver to calculate its time and hence you can then use all the values in the Times section in your program accurately.
OVERVIEW
You can find the times in the Periphery tree window underneath the section Server communication (beneath the Miniserver).
TIMES
| Name | Description |
| Annual pulse | A pulse each year on 01/01/YYYY at 00:00 |
| Calendar type | Number of the current day of the calendar |
| Day | Returns the current day |
| Daylight | Is on when it is daylight according to location |
| Daylight 30min | Is on when it is daylight plus 30 minutes after sunrise and 30 minutes before sunset |
| Days since 2009 | Number of days that have passed since 01/01/2009 (Loxone epoch) |
| Hour | Outputs the hour of the current time, e.g. 12:43:05 would return 12 |
| Minutes | Outputs the minutes of the current time, e.g. 12:43:05 would return 43 |
| Minutes past midnight | Specifies how many minutes have passed since midnight |
| Time to dawn | Specifies how many minutes since midnight it is until dawn that day |
| Time to dusk | Specifies how many minutes since midnight until it is dusk that day |
| Time to sunrise | Specifies how many minutes since midnight until sunrise that day |
| Time to sunset | Specifies how many minutes since midnight until sunset that day |
| Month | Returns the current month as a number, e.g. November would be 11 |
| Pulse for dawn | Pulse at the transition between night and day just before sunrise |
| Pulse for day | Daily pulse at 00:00 |
| Pulse for dusk | Pulse at the transition between night and day just after sunset |
| Pulse for hour | Pulse at every hour |
| Pulse for Minute | Pulse at every minute |
| Pulse for second | Monthly pulse on the 01/MM/YYYY at 00:00 |
| Pulse for sunrise | Pulse every second |
| Pulse for sunset | Pulse when the sun is moving above the horizon at the point it crosses |
| Seconds | Pulse when the sun is moving below the horizon at the point it crosses |
| Seconds since boot | Outputs the seconds of the current time, e.g. 12:43:05 would return 5 |
| Start pulse | Seconds since the last time that the Miniserver booted |
| Sun direction | Returns the current direction of the sun from 0° to 359°. This value is continually updated. North = 0°, East = 90°, South = 180°, West = 270° |
| Sun elevation | Returns the current elevation angle of the sun to the horizon from 0° to 90°, this is also continually updated |
| Weekday | Returns the current day of the week: Monday = 0, Tuesday = 1, Wednesday = 2, Thursday = 3, Friday = 4, Saturday = 5, Sunday = 6 |
| Year | Outputs the year of the current date, e.g. 15/11/2013 would return 2013 |
EXAMPLES
CURTAINS OPEN AT SUNRISE
Often people would like that their curtains open at sunrise. Not at 7:00 am, not at 8:00 am, but at sunrise. With Loxone no problem!
Just use the Pulse for sunrise found in the Times. In this example the pulse is connected to a memory flag and then this can be used on all the Automatic blind blocks. It is connected to the Cu input which drives the curtains fully open.
The opposite has also been implemented by using the Pulse for dusk as well so the curtains close in the evening.
MOTION DETECTOR ONLY BRINGS ON LIGHTS AT NIGHT
In a bathroom at night you might want to use a motion detector to bring on some low level lights. You wouldn’t want this to happen at day. To do this simply use the Lighting controller program block with the time “Daylight”.
Connect the motion sensor to the input Mv on the Lighting controller. See more about this here. Then associate a night scene with the motion sensor.
To stop the motion sensor coming on in the day connect the time input “Daylight” to the DisM input. If this input is active the motion sensor will be disabled and won’t turn on the night scene when triggered.
OUTDOOR LIGHTING FOR EVENING
The outside lights in this configuration are set to turn on 90 minutes after sunset and then off at midnight. The lights can also be directly controlled in the UI with the pushbutton block.
First the time “Minutes until sunset” is connected to an Add (2-way) block with the constant 90. Then when the time “Minutes past midnight” is equal to this value this turns the outdoor lights on (connected to the O always on input of the pushbutton).
Then when the time “Minutes past midnight” is equal to zero the lights go off (this is connected to the R input on the pushbutton).
Using constants means it is easy to quickly change the times the lights come on and go off at.
