ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Protocol page > The elements of a protocol > Testing > Events and actions > Setting up an action > Specifying the effect of an action > Changing the light level of a light controller

Changing the light level of a light controller

The action described here is for use in protocols created in version 4 of ANY-maze. In version 5, Events and actions have been replaced by procedures, for which there are similar, but more flexible, actions available.

Introduction

During a test, you can use an Action to alter the light level of a light controller. This is done using the Alter light levels window shown in figure 1.

Figure 1. The Alter light levels window, which is used to specify how an Action should alter the light controller.

Specify the new light level

There are three options for how the light level should change:

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The level can be set to some specific value, in %.

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The level can be set to increase or decrease from the current value by some specific number of %.

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The level can be set to increase or decrease from the current value by a certain percentage.

When the level change is specified as a percentage, the value will be rounded to the nearest resolution step of the controller.

When the light level is set to increase or decrease (rather than being set a specific value), the change will be applied to the currently programmed light level and not the light level that the device is actually at. For example, the controller might be programmed to be at 50% when an action sets it to increase by 50 over 10 minutes. Two minutes later, another action might set it to decrease by 20. In this case, it will still be ramping from 50% to 100% and will be currently be at 60% - however, the programmed level is 100%, so the decrease of 20 will be applied to this and the controller will be changed to 80%.

Ramping the change in light level

A light controller can alter the light level instantly, but there may be occasions when you want it to ramp from the current level to the new level over the course of time. In this case, you can specify the ramp duration and the controller will alter the level from its current value to the new value over this period. For example, specifying that a controller should change from 0 to 100% over 5 seconds will bring the lighting up slowly, rather than switching it on instantly.

ANY-maze help topic T0442