# BML Solunar Controller... Any help greatly appreciated!



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

The solunar is really not the most user friendly is it lol. 

The profile will be the same for both fixtures. You should have an adaptor that should have two inputs on it, with one plug on the other end so both lights are plugged into the same slot. 
I think this is what you need (I only have one fixture hooked up, verify with Buildmyled on this) 


I ended up doing my own custom profile, You certainly can change the intensity the way you described. I have mine currently set to 90%. So all of the ramp ups go from 0 to 90 over a set time, and then at the end they go from 90% to 0 over a set time. For moon lights, I have the blue / green set to drop to 5% and then stay on for an additional 2 hours for moon light before they dim the rest of the way to 0

The channels go as such
Channel 1 - Daylight
Channel 2 - Reds
Channel 3 - blue / green

On the Solunar you have the three plugs on the bottom. The far left one is Channel 1, middle Channel 2, and far right channel 3

to figure out which of the lines coming from the lights is which, make sure all channels are set to 100% on, and plug one in at a time into the first plug. If its green / blue label the wire as channel 3, if you only get reds that should be channel 2, and if you get whites that is channel 1 Label as such so you can remember just in case you have to move things around. You will have to do something similar with the second light once you have the splitters on. You might be able to pick up a head phone jack splitter from say radio shack and it probably will work. 

Note: the lowest you can go with the intensity is 5%, anything lower than that besides 0% the lights will flicker. So when you go from 5-0 during the dimming session as it reaches 4% you will start to get a flicker before it hits 0. 



Here is my current light schedule. The times have been modified a little bit from what is shown only to start a half an hour later. It gives a nice red sunrise, and a nice sunset. 
1
14:00
CH:1: RELAY ON
2
14:00
CH1: FADE 0 TO 100, DURATION 60
3
14:30
CH2: RELAY ON
4
14:30
CH2: FADE 0 TO 100, DURATION 30
5
14:45
CH3: RELAYON
6
14:45
CH3: FADE 0 TO 100, DURATION 15
7
22:30
CH1: 100 TO 0 DURATION 30
8
23:00
CH1: RELAY OFF
9
22:30
CH2: FADE 100 TO 0, DURATION 30
10
23:00
CH2: RELAY OFF
11
22:30
CH3: FADE 100 TO 5, DURATION 30
12
02:30
CH3: RELAYOFF





kep said:


> I have two 48" 6300k Dutch MC Series lights from BuildMyLED and I bought the Solunar controller. I am having a hard time understanding how to set it up. I understand how to operate the controller and maneuver through everything, it's just working with the actual profiles that are messing with my head.
> 
> I was looking at BML's forum and I think Profile 1 as they have it listed here looks good to me except I'm going to start with 60% at the highest, so I could easily just change all the "100" to "60". I'll also change the time of day for the photoperiod which I can handle.
> 
> ...


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## Brian Mc (Feb 9, 2012)

I am running the Profile 3 stock and love it so far, we will see if the photoperiod is too long. Yes the controller has to stay plugged in all the time. I would think you need 3 of these and could probably find them cheaper on Amazon, like Noahma said it looks like a headphone splitter: http://www.buildmyled.com/dimming-splitter-cable/


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## kep (Feb 3, 2015)

Noahma said:


> The solunar is really not the most user friendly is it lol.
> 
> The profile will be the same for both fixtures. You should have an adaptor that should have two inputs on it, with one plug on the other end so both lights are plugged into the same slot.
> I think this is what you need (I only have one fixture hooked up, verify with Buildmyled on this)





Brian Mc said:


> I am running the Profile 3 stock and love it so far, we will see if the photoperiod is too long. Yes the controller has to stay plugged in all the time. I would think you need 3 of these and could probably find them cheaper on Amazon, like Noahma said it looks like a headphone splitter: http://www.buildmyled.com/dimming-splitter-cable/


Oooooook, I think this is where my confusion came in then. They sent me three of the cables, I plugged one cable into each inline part of each light, then the other end of each into the Solunar. Now I see why they sent me three cables, one cable for each channel of ONE light. I am missing the splitter. Well, apparently it just doesn't come with it and I need to get the missing part myself I guess!

But actually I think I will need THREE of those splitter cables for it to work, one for each channel to control the two lights.

Now it's making sense. They could use an overhaul on the instructions to help not so handy people like me. Seems overly complicated yet stupidly simple at the same time.


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## jr125 (Mar 5, 2015)

I am running two lights on the solunar controller. Mine uses a seperate cord plugged into the controller and the driver for each light. The controller has a plug-in for three channels. I am using the first two (channel 1 & 2). I set up both lights on the same profile. When you set up an event you can select which channel(light) the event is for. Then type of event, start time, levels, duration etc. In essence you do a program for each channel(light) on the same profile. Each can have different start times, durations, levels etc. If you want to change something you just go to "profile edit", select the event or events you want to change and the rest is unchanged.
It took some trial and error to get the hang of the process but it seems pretty easy after you go through it a few times.

Oops. Overlooked the fact that you have the mc lights. Need a seperate controller for each light if you don't want them both to do the same thing via the splitter.


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## kep (Feb 3, 2015)

jr125 said:


> I am running two lights on the solunar controller. Mine uses a seperate cord plugged into the controller and the driver for each light. The controller has a plug-in for three channels. I am using the first two (channel 1 & 2). I set up both lights on the same profile. When you set up an event you can select which channel(light) the event is for. Then type of event, start time, levels, duration etc. In essence you do a program for each channel(light) on the same profile. Each can have different start times, durations, levels etc. If you want to change something you just go to "profile edit", select the event or events you want to change and the rest is unchanged.
> It took some trial and error to get the hang of the process but it seems pretty easy after you go through it a few times.


That sounds like exactly what I had set up before, but it didn't seem to be working. I read somewhere that you could select channel "0" and it would use them all in that case. So channel 0 would operate all 3 channels on one light.

But now I am thinking the channels on the actual controller (1,2,3) are for the 3 channels per light, and not say channel 1 on the controller for "light 1" and channel 2 on the controller for "light 2". But it is working the opposite for you, which is how I thought it worked initially.

I would suspect you couldn't operate the separate three channels on each light independently that way, but it should work. But that would also mean no moonlight setting.

So you didn't buy any splitters then?

I found the splitters 15 minutes away at Fry's for $8 each which I could run and get today. I'm going to play with it some more.

Are you by chance able to copy your schedule the way Noahma did above?



jr125 said:


> Oops. Overlooked the fact that you have the mc lights. Need a seperate controller for each light if you don't want them both to do the same thing via the splitter.


Okay, just saw this. Maybe that's why mine won't work the same lol


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## Kntry (Dec 26, 2013)

http://forum.buildmyled.com/index.php?threads/solunar-duration-help.1488/

Here is the link to my thread on BML about trying to program the Solunar. It was a nightmare for me and I'm not computer illiterate. 

Anyway, "0" will control all 3 channels at once. 

You could try calling Cara at BML to get help but she must be extremely busy. I tried calling, leaving messages and emails to buy a new light and never got a reply. I finally gave up and bought something else. In the past, I always had great customer service.


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## Brian Mc (Feb 9, 2012)

Yes with the MC (Multi-Channel) light there are 3 control cables, one for each channel (color). I haven't seen anyone running more than 1 MC on a Solunar but I am pretty sure the 3 splitter cables you bought are all you will need but you maybe should have checked with BML first LOL. At any rate splitting the signal would be underdriving as opposed to over so I wouldn't worry about it personally. 

The channels line up 1,2,3 from left to right when you are looking at the 'front' of the device. I labeled mine for less hassle in the future.

The interface is not the most intuitive but once you play with it some you get the hang of it. One cool trick is going into the clock function and speeding it up 100X or so and watching the program run.


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## jr125 (Mar 5, 2015)

Sorry for the confusion in my earlier post. I am not running multi-channel lights so I can run each one independently on the same profile by using a separate channel for each light on the controller. Yes, for your lights you would use a separate channel on the controller for each of the three colors on your light. By using a splitter on each controller channel you can run both lights identically on the same profile. I'm not sure how the three color channels on the mc lights are broken down, let's just call them channel A B & C. If you run channel A from each light to a splitter and plug the splitter into the channel 1 port on the controller, channel B from each light into a splitter and plug the splitter into channel 2 port on the controller and channel C from each light into a splitter and plug the splitter into channel 3 port on the controller you can program all three color channels on both lights to run on the same profile. The three light channels can be programed independently but both lights will do the same thing at the same time. As mentioned selecting channel 0 will control all the channels at once. If you want one light to do something different than the other you will have to run 2 solunar controllers, one for each light.


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## kep (Feb 3, 2015)

While messing around with it and finally having a direction I realized that one of the drivers didn't work. It will run the light but once you plug it into the controller it just doesn't listen. Like a short or something. I think that's part of why things were so nuts over here is because it wasn't operating the way it should either. So I got the one light set up and working right now on profile 2. It sure looks nice! 

Not real happy about the broken driver though. Will do me no good to buy the splitter until they send me a new one. I just hope that the turn around time is a lot faster than it has been for everything else. I will ask them about it when I get a response to my email or call on Monday. Especially since I was sent two different tank mounts and only one set worked!! So one of the lights is just setting on the tank now. 

I will be so happy when all this is over. It's been quite a pain. Pretty much just operating on your own when it comes to BML lately. They're so busy it's just giving them a bad name right now. I hope they figure it out! 

But, my tank looks beautiful just running the one light right now. I'll plug the other into a manual timer to make due. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## jr125 (Mar 5, 2015)

Sorry you're having such a hard time kep. You might want to check all the cables to see if there is a problem. I had a driver that was not responding to the controller and when I unscrewed the cover on a cable end discovered a poor solder connection. I corrected the poor connection and everything worked fine. I too have found customer service at BLM a little inconsistent. You have to be persistent I guess.


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## Kanderson (Oct 20, 2015)

I know this thread is more than 6 months old, but i have been struggling to learn about the profile settings on my BML MC series fixture as well. Can anyone tell me just what the % tells the moon or the cloud function to do?? Also clarify what the duration drives on these as well. My moon setting is not working...I have it set to dim to 4%, and it is all over the board from 95% down, and on all channels. I want it to be just the blue/green channel. Thanks for your input!


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## alcimedes (Dec 7, 2014)

I found the following information in a review of the controller product on BML's site. I am running the program this person recommended and I've had good luck with it so far, but apparently the "relay on" and "relay off" commands didn't stick like I'd hoped. 

I'm going to go through and redo the program again tonight. The following might give you some insight into the fade/levels you want to use to get the desired effect though.



> I noticed a few things that prevent problems with creating profiles for the controller. *LEDs flicker between 0-5% levels. This flicker can be avoided by using a Fade event down to 5% then a Level event to 0%.* When using a Fade up event start from the 5% level. Do not overlap Fade and Level events. Separate them by at least 1 minute, otherwise the Level event could be skipped and leave the LEDs on. When previewing the controller profile, a 100X Speedup of the time control can cause Level events to be skipped. 60X Speedup works okay. A 270 minute Fade event does not work. Use up to a 240 minute Fade event and divide longer Fade events into shorter segments.


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## vivekrpa (Feb 20, 2017)

*Vrpa - solunar bml controller*

I see this thread a old one but trying to reach my needs. 
We r setting up a Inhouse LED Greenhouse where a SOLUNAR controller is required to control the intensity. Any one on the thread has reach to a solution which can be utilized or can provide a technical support to achieve.


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