On Friday, May 7, 2021 at 8:40:47 AM UTC-4, trader_4 wrote:
So I finally got around to working on this. I bought one of the fixtures.
First thing I realized is that the base of it is almost square, not round
like I had thought. That's very good, because if I need to make an
interposer to adjust the angle, I can make it out of wood fairly easy.

But of course it's not that easy.... The good news is that for the first
location where the roof/soffit slope is very low, it will fit and can be
nicely angled for coveratge. It's better than I hoped for. The bad news
is the freaking thing doesn't work correctly. Here is the situation.
This light has an accent mode, where it can be set to come on a low
brightness at dusk for 3 or 6 hours or from dusk till dawn. It has a
security light mode that can be set to come on when motion is
detected for 1, 5 or 20 minutes. The two modes are supposed to
work together, which makes sense.

It has a test mode so that you can adjust the motion sensor. When
the switch is set to test, the security light works. I can walk around
the area, it triggers momentarily, when I stop moving it goes off.
The accent mode works, when that setting switch is turned on,
it comes on at low output at dusk. But with the motion sensor enabled,
no response to motion at night. When I move the switch from test to either
1 min, 5 min or 20 mins, the light does not respond to motion, it just
stays on in low level accent mode. I thought maybe the motion setting
switch that moves between test, 1, 5, 20 is bad, but that can't be, because
when I turn the accent lighting mode off, then it does sense motion at
night and go to full brightness in the 1 min position. Turn the accent
lighting back on, then no response to motion.

This is very bizarre, seems something would have to be wrong with the IC
that they have in there that controls it for this to happen. I'm going to call
the company up today, see what they have to say, but I can't figure out a
logical explanation.

Never mind.....

Just got off the phone with Jasco. That's the way the stupid thing is designed.
When accent lighting is on, it will not respond to motion and go into full brightness
security light mode. I had Heath/Zenith ones previously and they had accent
mode and when motion was detected, then they went to full brightness. This
is really dumb. With one more switch, they could have had it selectable to
either of those two ways of operation.

I can see where in some applications you would not want it to respond to motion
when accent lighting is on. Like if you have it in your backyard, like to hang out
there after dark with mosquitoes, want the accent lighting, but don't want it going
to full brightness when you move. But IMO there are more applications where you
want it to respond and go to full on, like when a car pulls up, you go out at night
so it lights up the whole area better so you can see, etc. I guess I can live with
it though, since it's perfect in all other respects. I'll just set it for 6 hours of
accent. Now I have to get another one for the other end of the house, where the
roof/soffit slope is greater and see if it can work there too.