Tunnel – Switching a relay depending on the astronomical clock of the MTX and according to scheduled times for special days

Scenario details:

• We need to switch a relay depending on the sunrise and sunset to activate a lighting system
• It is not possible to establish a fixed time, since the time of sunrise and sunset depends on the place (sunrise/sunset at the same time in Madrid, Barcelona or Mexico City) and day of the year (summer/winter). To do this, the MTX modem must be configured as an astronomical clock
• For special days, such as Christmas or local holidays, it must be possible to configure schedules to activate/deactivate the relay in a pre-programmed way at a specific time
• The location of the device is Cardedeu, with GPS position latitude: 41.6333 and longitude: 2.36667

Solution: MTX-Tunnel firmware + MTX-Java-IoT

EXAMPLE of settings (file config.txt) for such scenario:

Details:

• This scenario can be combined with others that simultaneously perform serial/GPRS gateways to access serial devices (modbus or others) as well as others in which the MTXTunnel autonomously collects modbus data and sends it via JSON to web platforms
• The MTX-Tunnel works in the following way with respect to its astronomical clock: each time a change of day occurs it calculates the hour/minute of the instants “orto” (sunrise) and “ocaso” (sunset). But before calculating those moments it consults the file “astroschedule. txt, where you can define exceptions for certain days. For example, if you define a special sunrise/sunset schedule for January 5th and it is included in the “astroschedule.txt” file, the MTX-Tunnel will use that schedule instead of the calculated one
• The “astroschedule.txt” file has the following format:
  ID:day;month;hourOrto;minutesOrto;hourOcaso;minutesOcaso\r\n
  Where ID is a value that indicates the time identification (it can range from 1 to 200). Note that after the ID, “:” (calling) must be written, unlike the rest of the parameters that are separated by “;” (semicolon)
  day: indicates the day of the month (1 …31)
  month: indicates the month (1…12)
  hourOrto: indicates the “forced hour” of sunrise (0 … 23)
  minutesOrto: indicates the “forced minutes” of sunrise (0 … 59)
  hourOcaso: indicates the “forced hour” of sunset (0 … 23)
  minutesOcaso: indicates the “forced minutes” of sunset (0 … 59)
  For example, if we want to specify 2 schedules, one for January 5th and another one for October 12th, we could write the file “astroschedule.txt” this way:
  1:5;1;8;0;17;30
  2:12;10;7;45;18;30
  Where on the 5th of January the hour of forced orto would be 08:00 and ocaso 17:30 and on October 12th would be 07:45 and 18:30 respectively
• The file “astroschedule.txt” can be written manually in the root directory of the memory of the modem (next to the file config.txt“), it can also be downloaded completely in the memory of the modem with the command AT ^ MTXTUNNEL = DOWNLOAD… (it would be downloaded via http from a URL), but it is also possible to use a series of AT commands, such as: AT^MTXTUNNEL=SETASTROSCHEDULE, AT^MTXTUNNEL=GETASTROSCHEDULE, AT^MTXTUNNEL=GETASTROSCHEDULES, AT^MTXTUNNEL=DELASTROSCHEDULES, AT^MTXTUNNEL=DELASTROSCHEDULE. Consult the information of said commands in this manual for more information
• Note that if you set the OUTPUT_config3 parameter (to indicate an orto and ocaso offset) the times specified in the “astroschedule.txt” file will not be affected
• Keep in mind that, as always, the time specified in the “astroschedule.txt” file must be UTC time