User Panel
Posted: 1/23/2023 9:00:45 PM EDT
WILBRAHAM, Mass. — For nearly a year and a half, a Massachusetts high school has been lit up around the clock because the district can’t turn off the roughly 7,000 lights in the sprawling building. The lighting system was installed at Minnechaug Regional High School when it was built over a decade ago and was intended to save money and energy. But ever since the software that runs it failed on Aug. 24, 2021, the lights in the Springfield suburbs school have been on continuously, costing taxpayers a small fortune. “We are very much aware this is costing taxpayers a significant amount of money,” Aaron Osborne, the assistant superintendent of finance at the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District, told NBC News. “And we have been doing everything we can to get this problem solved.” View Quote One of the cost-saving measures the school board insisted on was a “green lighting system” run on software installed by a company called 5th Light to control the lights in the building. The system was designed to save energy — and thus save money — by automatically adjusting the lights as needed. View Quote https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lights-massachusetts-school-year-no-one-can-turn-rcna65611 |
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I guarantee there is a breaker or three that would shut the whole thing down and still leave other items on.
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Quoted: I guarantee there is a breaker or three that would shut the whole thing down and still leave other items on. View Quote I work high school maintenance. My building was built in the late 70's. All the lights for every area have their own panel. Separate panel for recepticles. I find it extremely difficult to believe they "cannot shut them off". We have building automation too. Guess what? YOU CAN MANUALLY OVERRIDE EVERYTHING!!!! |
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You do know there IS no breaker panel?
The software takes the place of that. It's not THAT simple. |
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Building automation is such a shitshow. Causes more problems than it solves
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Voters must’ve voted down a tax increase for pay raises for everyone .
Voting down pay raises has consequences |
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Quoted: You do know there IS no breaker panel? The software takes the place of that. It's not THAT simple. View Quote LMAOOOOO..... there is a wire going into that system from the energy company. Call the energy company to shut power, cut said cable, installed high amperage cut off. problem solved. |
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Not even exactly sure how this system works and why they couldn't run a bypass around the computer to regain manual control of the power
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Quoted: You do know there IS no breaker panel? The software takes the place of that. It's not THAT simple. View Quote There is a breaker somewhere that feeds it regardless of the controls. The real problem is an abrupt power disruption usually fucks up the software and lights end up not coming back on. We’re experiencing this first hard at our office with a piece of shit lighting system I manage |
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This happened at my highschool growing up. Not the same system but similar problem. I couldn't believe they were not fliping the breaker.
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Quoted: Building automation is such a shitshow. Causes more problems than it solves View Quote And it's only getting worse. Performance contracting is a scam. They spend thousands and thousand of dollars on Niagra or similar supervisor systems, then let Joe Lawnmower try to run it. Save the money, send Joe Lawnmore to school, invest in your people not the hoo-doo AI software. Rant off. |
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Building lighting and OCC systems are dumbest thing these days, esp daylight harvesting. Pretty much ever system we put in gets overriden with in a month or two.
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But…but…if you shut off all the power, all the clocks will be wrong.
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So I may not be able to charge my electric car now though, that damn place sucking down all the electricity.
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I could shut those lights off, and I’d only charge them $10k.
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There's probably a dozen kids at the school that could fix this.
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“We are very much aware this is costing taxpayers a significant amount of money, but fuck them” Aaron Osborne,
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My high school was built in the late 1970s, by a contractor that embezzled a fair amount of the budget (and did the same to several other schools he was building at the time). The interior walls were 1/4" sheetrock. The halls constantly had holes in the walls because someone got bumped into them. The fad at the time was a sealed building for energy efficiency, but the builder didn't install the correct HVAC system, so there was no fresh air inflow. Everyone got drowsy at the end of the day because co2 level got high from 800 kids breathing...
The cafeteria was actually supposed to be the indoor pool, and even had a retracting wall so there would be seating for tournaments. Because so much of the funds were stolen, the pool was scrapped and the space converted to be the cafeteria (ever see an Olympic pool sized school cafeteria with 40' ceiling and an alcove for diving boards? The contractor was eventually arrested, convicted, and went to prison for a while, but the money was gone. |
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Quoted: I guarantee there is a breaker or three that would shut the whole thing down and still leave other items on. View Quote How fucking stupid are school administrators? Seriously. No matter what fancy computer controls you put in, there is 100% guaranteed a disconnect between the power feed and the controls. More likely they're afraid if they shut it down the lights won't turn back on, which is possible. It's still not that hard a fix for a summer project, so it goes back to my first statement above. |
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Quoted: I work high school maintenance. My building was built in the late 70's. All the lights for every area have their own panel. Separate panel for recepticles. I find it extremely difficult to believe they "cannot shut them off". We have building automation too. Guess what? YOU CAN MANUALLY OVERRIDE EVERYTHING!!!! View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: I guarantee there is a breaker or three that would shut the whole thing down and still leave other items on. I work high school maintenance. My building was built in the late 70's. All the lights for every area have their own panel. Separate panel for recepticles. I find it extremely difficult to believe they "cannot shut them off". We have building automation too. Guess what? YOU CAN MANUALLY OVERRIDE EVERYTHING!!!! I despise "automation" with the hatred of a thousand suns. That said, turning thing off is easy. It' the getting shit to turn on/work correctly that's a bitch. |
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Think about it. Those are the people placed in charge of supposedly educating our children.
No wonder this country is so fucked up. |
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Article says they are turning off some breakers... Teachers are unscrewing led lamps to darken rooms for presentations...
All the schools I've built around here are occupancy controlled with manual overrides for the interior and photocell overridden time clocks for exterior. Fuck those lighting scene controls...looking at you Creston. |
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Quoted: There is a breaker somewhere that feeds it regardless of the controls. The real problem is an abrupt power disruption usually fucks up the software and lights end up not coming back on. We’re experiencing this first hard at our office with a piece of shit lighting system I manage View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: You do know there IS no breaker panel? The software takes the place of that. It's not THAT simple. There is a breaker somewhere that feeds it regardless of the controls. The real problem is an abrupt power disruption usually fucks up the software and lights end up not coming back on. We’re experiencing this first hard at our office with a piece of shit lighting system I manage Exactly. The problem isn't turning them off. That's easy. The problem is getting them back on. |
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Quoted: I despise "automation" with the hatred of a thousand suns. That said, turning thing off is easy. It' the getting shit to turn on/work correctly that's a bitch. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I guarantee there is a breaker or three that would shut the whole thing down and still leave other items on. I work high school maintenance. My building was built in the late 70's. All the lights for every area have their own panel. Separate panel for recepticles. I find it extremely difficult to believe they "cannot shut them off". We have building automation too. Guess what? YOU CAN MANUALLY OVERRIDE EVERYTHING!!!! I despise "automation" with the hatred of a thousand suns. That said, turning thing off is easy. It' the getting shit to turn on/work correctly that's a bitch. We have Trane here almost everyday because the automation is funky. I've been here 6 years and we still have to turn on/off the circ pumps and chillers by hand. |
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Quoted: Which begs another question...in the event of fire/flood similar emergency, wouldn't the main electrical (or at the very least the lights) need a main "OFF?" View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: OSHA would like to have a word with your Lockout/Tagout program Yes. Big fucking switch. Lever is 2 feet long. |
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They can't get an electrician, or, someone who understands how to work the computer to fix it? For more than a year?
And they are entrusted with preparing kids for the future? |
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