General Photocell Programming

Photocells

PCC1 and PCC3

PCC1 & PCC3 cards are photocell input cards. A PCC 1 card is a single input card that cannot be digitally disabled and a PCC3 card is a 3 input cartally disabled. PCC cards read the light level from a 2-wd that can be digiire analog photocell, and communicate the reading back to the system controller. To program a PCC card, select PROGRAM SWITCH from the USER MENU and press ENTER. Select the ID# of the photocell card and PRESS ENTER (PCC cards will appear as ANALOG/DIGI in the PROGRAM SWITCH screen).  You will see a list of triggers.

PCC cards are programmed using triggers. A trigger defines two things: The lighting levels at which the loads will turn on and off, and which loads are being triggered at those levels. To program a trigger, select a TRIGGER# and press ENTER.  Here you can enter which loads are to be controlled by that trigger the same way you would enter loads into a Chelsea switch.

The mode of the TRIGGER will appear in the top right hand corner of the trigger screen. The default mode is MAINTAIN. If you press enter while the mode is selected, you can adjust the on and off triggering levels:

If you press SCROLL UP or SCROLL DOWN while ANALOG is selected, you can choose which input number on the PCC card the trigger is referencing. In the image above, input #1 on the PCC card is reading 32. TIME DELAY indicates how long the photocell must be beyond the triggering points before it will switch the loads. You can SCROLL UP or SCROLL DOWN on the on and off triggering levels to adjust them here as well.

Disabling PCC Inputs

On a PCC3 card, inputs 1-3 are disabled using triggers 11-13. If a load programmed to trigger 11 is ON, trigger 1 is disabled. If a load programmed to trigger 12 is ON, trigger 2 is disabled.  If a load programmed to trigger 13 is ON, trigger 3 is disabled. This assumes triggers 11-13 are programmed in ON MODE.

Adjusting Input Sensitivity

Below each photocell input on a PCC3 card, is a dial that can be adjusted to change the sensitivity of that input. Turning the dial clockwise will decrease the sensitivity of the input to work better outdoors. Turning the dial counter clockwise will increase the sensitivity of the input to work better indoors.

Micropanel (iDIM/iDH) Photocells

If an LC&D system uses a photocell hooked up to a MicroPanel, the photocell may only control loads from within that MicroPanel. The Micropanel photocell is a 3-wire photocell and it is wired to the control card as shown below:

MicroPanel Photocell Setup and Operation

If you have a DIM channel set to PC, and you press ENTER while PC is selected, you will see this screen:

You can SCROLL UP or SCROLL DOWN on IN1 here to select a different photocell input for that channel to reference. FADE UP and FADE DN are the amounts of time it will take for the dimmer to sweep along the full dimming range up and down respectively. START indicates the light level where the channel starts to dim. MID indicates that lighting level where the dimmer will output 50%, and OFF indicates the lighting level at which the channel will turn completely OFF. If the brightness is above the MUST Turn ON level, the channel will turn on regardless of the fade times. Time Out from Off is the amount of time after the dimmer has turned off before it will turn on again.