Issue
Control HVAC or especially lighting based on the sunrise and sunset times for a given location on a given date, even though this functionality does not exist in Vista like it does in I/NET.
Environment
Menta
Cause
Menta/Vista time schedules have no built-in sunrise/sunset capability. If this is required, it will need to be programmed into a Menta file.
Resolution
The attached Menta Macro calculates the sunrise and sunset for a given location. Click the picture to download.
Inputs - Menta Simple Blocks
- Month
- Date
- Hour
- Minute
Configurable Parameters
- Year = Current year. As Menta has no "Year" block, it must be calculated in the controller and should be set initially for the current year.
- DST = Does this location participate in Daylight Savings Time? 1=Yes, 0=No.
- TimeZone = Location's offset in hours from GMT
- Latitude = Location's latitude in degrees. North is a positive value, south is a negative value.
- Longitude = Location's longitude in degrees. West is a positive value, east is a negative value.
Outputs - Available Data
- Current minutes past midnight
- Sunset minutes past midnight
- Sunset hour
- Sunset minutes
- Sunrise minutes past midnight
- Sunrise hour
- Sunrise minutes
- Output integer represents minutes until next transition. Mimics a Menta time schedule. Positive values count down minutes until sunrise. Negative values count down minutes until sunset.