Intelligent relay controls university lighting

Easy relays from Moeller offered a simple solution for a dramatic lighting arrangement featuring concentric rings of pavement uplights at the University of North London

A new feature, highlighting urban dynamism, is the University of North London's New Tower.

Behind the tower is a new courtyard and café in what used to be a car park.

Designed by award winning architects, Austin Smith-Lord, it utilises concentric rings of pavement uplights, together with floodlights and uplights on raised decking, to create an impressive lightscape, complementing the courtyard's textures and materials.

Architectural lighting and commercial electrical contractors, Robert Ebdon, working with switchgear suppliers, Moeller, have installed Easy relays to control this dynamic lightscape.

The buried pavement uplights comprise Louis Poulsen's Nimbus LED blue, IP67 protected lights, featuring 31 LEDs and marine grade stainless steel fronts.

Lighting for the decking is supplied by the company's Pharo uplights with ceramic metal halide bulbs.

Providing dramatic floodlighting for the surrounding buildings and a chimney are HQI floodlights.

Scott Buckley, a director of Robert Ebdon, set the scene: " We wanted equipment which could pulse the pavement lights to get a ripple effect and control all the other lights.

Easy offered a simple solution and Moeller aided us in the programming of the units to exactly match our requirements." Three Easy 412 AC Rs control the switching sequence of 130 courtyard lights including the concentric LEDs and metal halide flood lamps.

The ripple on/off switching of the LEDs is multispeed thanks to the Easy and can be set simply following a few instructions.

The overall timing of when the lights operate is clock controlled with separate summer and winter regulating times.

The combination of the LED's low voltage input and the high switching capacity of the Easy unit, allows groups of light clusters to be controlled by one Easy.

By running three Easy relays on identical programmes and linking them, they are able to cascade and trigger each other.

The Easy relays range consists of the 600 and 412 series, with the 600 relay featuring twelve inputs and six relay or eight transistor outputs, while the 412 has eight inputs and four relay outputs.

The relay outputs are rated at 8A, allowing many of these lamps to be switched directly from the EASY unit.

Expansion modules are available for the Easy 600 series, producing a maximum of 24 inputs and up to 16 outputs.

A communication module option provides remote control of the relays via a bus network.

Both the 600 and the 412 are available as 115/230 V AC or 24V DC versions.

Programming the Easy is done simply through keystrokes which are then displayed on an LCD display.

The 412 allows up to 41 lines of logic and the 600 up to 121 lines of logic.

This provides sufficient space for a whole host of applications and for any subsequent modifications and extensions.

Rapid set up and programming is facilitated by Easy Soft, which provides development of programs on a PC.

Password protection is available to prevent accidental corruption of programs.

The Easy also features a programmable chip which can be down loaded into any other Easy saving time when extending a system or reprogramming if a program is accidentally corrupted.

"We developed the program on a PC with Moeller's Easy Soft which proved a simple and effective way to configure the controller.

From initial concept and consultation with Moeller to commissioning the unit just took two weeks", added Buckley.

The University of North London with about 14,000, both full time and part time students has been established for around one hundred and fifty years.

Its main campus is located off the Holloway Road with the striking New Tower, designed by Rick Mather Architects, who were also responsible for much of the architectural regeneration along the South Bank.

The courtyard architects Austin Smith-Lord's works include RIBA award winning Manchester Airport Railway Terminal and Liverpool's Peter Jost Enterprise Centre.

Established for over 50 years, Robert Ebdon Ltd, based at Canary Wharf, specialise in architectural lighting projects and major commercial electrical installations such as: building power distribution, fire alarms, security alarms and closed circuit television systems.

Its in house design studio with AutoCad 2000 is able to provide customers with a complete design solution to their requirements.

The company's wide portfolio of work includes lighting and power projects within The Millennium Dome and refurbishing Lakeside Shopping Centre, Thurrock..

(This was Engineeringtalk's Top Story on 20 November 2001).

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