WHAT IS IT?

Lighting Control System

A 5-button panel for fast food restaurants to easily control their indoor and outdoor lights any time of the day.

The Problem

Restaurants struggle with complicated lighting systems that may or may not be part of an energy management system. Complex settings and programming often don’t work as designed. That means service calls, wasted energy, shorter lighting life, and a dark, unsafe walk out for the team at closing.

The Solution

A fully integrated, hard-wired lighting control, protected by US Patent No. 7,932,643. The manager goes from open to close with five simple presses of a button.

The Pay-Off

No one is left in the dark. Energy is used efficiently, and customers can clearly see when the store is open.

HOW IT WORKS

Five buttons, one day

Button	When it’s pressed	What happens
ARRIVE	As soon as the team arrives	Kitchen lights come on. An “occupied” signal goes to the kitchen thermostat, and the rest of the panel is enabled. If it’s still dark enough for the photocells, the pole lights come on and go off as daylight increases. If the hood interface is connected, the hood system comes on with the kitchen lights.
OPEN	When the dining room opens	Dining room lights come on (only after ARRIVE has been pressed). An “occupied” signal goes to the dining room thermostat. If it’s dark enough, signs and building lighting come on and go off as daylight increases.
DINING ROOM CLOSE	When the dining room closes	Dining room HVAC goes into set-back. The lights stay on, so the store still looks open to bring in business.
CLOSE	When the store is closed for all business	Dining room lighting, building lighting, signage and the drive-thru menu board go off. Kitchen lighting and site (pole) lighting stay on. Some drive-thru menu boards need constant power and are not controlled by this panel.
DEPART	As the last person walks out	Kitchen lights go off. Parking lot lights stay on for ≈15 minutes so the team has light to reach their cars. The kitchen thermostat gets an “unoccupied” signal. If the hood interface is connected, the hood system goes off too.

Maintenance overrides. Two override switches, one for parking lot lighting and one for building lights and signage, are for electricians. They time out after 3 hours, or you can reset them to run on the photocells. Lot lights and building signage can also be set to come on at different light levels. Signage is typically brought on earlier, even on a dark or dreary day.

WHY IT WORKS

Built to be left alone

Reliability

Solid-state components run at only a fraction of their capacity. These components have worked in a similar panel for about 20 years, with only one known exception. The buttons and switches are industrial-grade, built for many operations a day, and the panel usually needs only one per control point per day.

Common photocells

Light-level functions use common photocells that are easy to replace, and that are underused, so they should last an exceptionally long time.

Energy savings

Maintenance staff get a real override switch, so nobody has to cover a photocell to work on the lights and then forget to uncover it. The override shuts itself off after 3 hours. The rest of the time, the outside lights come on only when it’s dark enough to need them.

No training needed

The label on the face of the panel explains each button. Lighting, temperature and hood control follow what the team already does when they open and close.

No monitoring needed

Two photocells do the watching. One runs the signs and building lights and comes on earlier, so on a dark or dreary day the store still looks open. The other runs the parking lot lights, which come on only when it’s actually getting dark. Nobody has to remember to flip anything, and no lights burn when they aren’t needed.

Consistent, every day

It works through wiring, not software. There are no programs to change, so how it behaves is virtually assured.

Simple

Operations and maintenance staff can understand how it works.

Easy to install

It’s designed to replace virtually any controller, often by removing the old control box and installing the new one with new photocells. Detailed instructions are included, with a guide to auditing the 4 lighting groups (kitchen, dining, parking lot, and signs, soffit & building).

Flexible

Operations control the 4 lighting groups that follow the store’s schedule, so the panel adapts when the schedule changes. On a dreary day they can bring lights on with the timed override.

The lights and signs will be on

Operations can’t disable the lighting without turning off breakers. If the kitchen lights are on and it’s getting dark, the lights that bring customers in will be on.

FUNDAMENTALS OF DESIGN

Hard-wired on purpose

Non-changeable

Its function is hard-wired with relay logic. There are no programs to lose or re-create and no timers to set.

Off-the-shelf parts

Everything is a standard industrial control component except the 3 timers, and even those are available in an adaptable form.

Robust

Power failures don’t affect it. When power is restored, it works just as it did before.

Little interface, little confusion

After years of servicing restaurants with integrated controls, we found that a problem can take multiple trips by different trades to resolve. Keeping systems independent nearly eliminates that, so the system that actually failed gets fixed promptly.

INSTALLATION

Working with your other systems

HVAC. A set of contacts closes when the kitchen or dining room is occupied.
Hood. The hood system, usually a single switch, can be tied into the panel through a set of contacts that closes when the kitchen lights come on.
Lighting contactors. The panel simply controls the lighting contactors and works with an existing contactor system or a new one. The control is kept separate on purpose: many electricians are confused by control panels but not by contactors, and can bypass a contactor to get lights working temporarily if something fails.
Light on arrival. Install one or two LED fixtures on an unswitched circuit inside the entrance the team uses, plus a photocell-controlled LED fixture outside over that door. Once inside, the team member presses ARRIVE.
After-hours maintenance staff (exterminators, for example) follow the same steps: ARRIVE, then OPEN, then DEPART when they leave.

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