Daylight Savings Time Clock Updates for Non-Networked 5500NAC2

[AutomatedElec]

Has anyone found a solution to change a NAC2 clock time for daylight savings when the controller is not connected to the internet?

We have a project that the NAC lives on an isolated network so we cannot use NTP servers to automatically update the time.

PICED used to allow you to change the system clock with a schedule but the schedules in the NAC don't have this functionality. I have created a LUA script to detect if the current time is within the local DST period, but cannot work out how to use this to actually set the NAC clock (LUA allows to read the clock time but not set it).

Any tips or help would be appreciated 🙂

Cheers, Chris

[AutomatedElec]

Just as a follow up to this for anyone in the future that had the same query...

We tried adding a Raspberry Pi with a GPS module to the isolated network and set it up as a stratum 1 time server for the NAC, which worked well. The RPi would synchronise its clock from the GPS network and the NAC would synchronise its clock with the RPi server automatically every 15 minutes.

As a free alternative, we wrote a LUA script that used the NAC’s OS time and determined if it was in DST or not. It would then update a User Parameter of the Time/Day data type with the adjusted DST time for our area that could then be used in other scripts to run scenes or other functions. The downside of this method is that you cannot trigger schedules from a user parameter, everything will need to be done in LUA, so the user cannot easily update schedules with the built in schedule editor.

In the end though this was all for nothing, as we found that the NAC will automatically roll its clock forward and back for daylight savings, based on your set timezone, without an internet connection. It just means that without access to an NTP server, the NAC’s clock will drift over time. I just wish they would add the ability to give the user access to setting the system time from the visualization interface so the user can easily update the time clock when it drifts. While I am at it, I also wish they would add a scene editor like they have for schedules!