My 2¢

I hadn’t been working too much on the landscape lighting project since sometime in mid-April. We needed to put up a storage shed in the back yard to store stuff from the basement so that we can convert a large part of the basement into a family room. As the shed nears completion, I’ve been working on the landscape lighting project again. I was hoping to have it up and running by this summer, but I think I’m going to miss that deadline. There’s still more coding on the controller that needs done, and there’s still some hardware/enclosure issues to bang out.

As for the controller, I need to add a few more of the lighting effects and implement the timers. I’ve been concentrating on the timers for about a week now. I’ve decided that there will be 5 timers, and each timer can be either:

• Daily - timer comes on and goes off at the same time every day
• Weekly - the timer comes on and goes off at the same time on specified days of the week
• Calendar - the timer comes on at a specific time on a specific day and goes off at a specified time

The hardware that remains is creating the connection points. A single 4 conductor cable will run from the lighting controller. The cable will then feed what I’m calling a connection point. It’s a little box with screw terminals (on the inside) where up to four of the lighting fixtures can attach. It will also contain some active circuitry to act as an RS-485 repeater to the next connection point, and so on. I’ve got a prototype of a connection point working, and I’m working on designing the PCB. What I’m still trying to figure out is the best way to house and weatherproof the whole thing. Not only will the lid have to seal, but the points on the box where the cables enter will also have to be weatherproof. I’ll probably end up using some type of silicone caulk to plug up the cable holes.