Mod suggestion: Light sensor

[Cyrious]

Is what it says on the tin: either a simple part or a command part (probes, capsules, anything that can hold a crew and command a craft) modification that when the craft no longer has direct LoS to the sun (gone behind a body, or are on the night side of a body), the light sensor triggers an action group or groups.

A simple example would be to use it to trigger floodlighting for stations/bases. Is the station behind the host body/is the base on the night side of the terminator? Hit the "Lights" action group. Is the sun visible again? Turn them off.

A more complex example would be to switch power sources (say, from solar to fuel cells/nuclear reactors) depending on the availability of the sun, or turn off high power draw equipment during the dark periods.

[HansonKerman]

Ah yes, I support this. It would definitely save a lot of U and Retract.

[kerbiloid]

A trigger on illuminance value (a slider+textedit), to activate the action group.
With some delay value (seconds, slider+textedit) to prevent continuous triggering on getting in/out local shadows.

This could run not just on day/night, but also on evening.
Also if the illuminance depends on a submarine depth,

Edited September 16, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Cyrious]

I was thinking maybe simply use the same trigger solar panels use when moving in and out of LoS with Kerbol. It'd prevent the local shadow triggering issue.

[Mecripp]

You might check out 

EDIT- whoops old thread

 

Edited September 16, 2018 by Mecripp

[Cyrious]

Huh, close, but it doesn't seem to allow for setting other sunlight triggered command group activations as well. I do know being able to toggle power sources according to solar exposure would be useful.

[Vexillar]

This is a great idea.  Crew Light confirms that the coding is possible.  Having a part that activates action groups would be fantastic for surface bases (for one thing).

[Mecripp]

1 hour ago, Cyrious said:

Huh, close, but it doesn't seem to allow for setting other sunlight triggered command group activations as well. I do know being able to toggle power sources according to solar exposure would be useful.

It triggers the lights just has you asked but not on fuel cells or reactors 

EDIT- Looking at it there might be away to do alittle Mm magic to do all you asked will have to play with it and see

Edited September 16, 2018 by Mecripp

[JH4C]

Sounds like you need to cross-pollinate CrewLights and Smart Parts: