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Vantage Controls® Focuses on Stargazing Quality at the Grand Canyon South Rim Visitor Center

Pleasant Grove, Utah, December 6, 2017 – The south end of the Grand Canyon is the most visited part of the Grand Canyon National Park with more than five million visitors each year. As one of the world’s seven natural wonders, the Grand Canyon is famous for its hiking trails, solitude, and beautiful nighttime views. To best optimize the stargazing experience while complying with the International Dark-Sky Association, a leading organization combatting light pollution worldwide, the South Rim Visitor Center selected MH Lighting to upgrade its lighting system to utilize solutions from Vantage Controls, a brand of Legrand.

The park hosts stargazing parties that allow visitors to gather in the parking lots of the north and south visitor centers with telescopes, cameras, and binoculars to enjoy the starry views. As the stargazing parties gained popularity and the crowds continued to grow, the park decided to upgrade its lighting control system. It needed to choose just the right system that would provide safe pathway lighting for the guests while also dimming the pole lighting in the parking lot to decrease light pollution and optimize stargazing.

“The Grand Canyon had a big challenge on this installation because it had to work with the safety regulations, color temperature, and energy requirements from the International Dark-Sky Association,” says Forrest Kelsey, Director, Technical Services, Legrand. “The system design was based on the Vantage lighting control system including the DALI (digital addressable lighting interface) protocol, which provides the ability to send signals to each individual fixture and easily control the light level for the events. Additionally, the interface and system needed to be simple enough for employees and park rangers to easily control without a lot of training.”

For the installation, MH Lighting used a single wire daisy chain that feeds through the individual fixtures to minimize the amount of wiring MH Lighting had to run through the park. Inside the fixture is a DALI driver from Vantage Controls that allows the fixtures to communicate with the central controller. Inside the visitor center there are two Vantage Equinox touchscreen control pads that employees and rangers use as the user interface for the lighting system.

With that system in place, South Rim Visitor Center employees have full control of the pole lighting and walking path bollard lighting and are able to easily dim both during the stargazing parties. The lighting control system is also durable and rated for outdoor use in all weather.

The entire lighting system currently covers three of the parking lots and meets the need to light pathways without interfering with any stargazing activities. With the success of the project, plans are in place to add existing coverage and to expand to the remaining lots.

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About Vantage
Vantage, a brand of Legrand, is a leading manufacturer of intelligent, energy efficient lighting control systems for luxury residential and commercial applications. For more than 30 years, Vantage has employed the latest technologies in its products to create fully integrated, easy-to-use lighting automation solutions that save energy, comply with energy codes, and meet green initiatives. Vantage has been part of the Legrand group since its acquisition in 2006. For more information, visit http://www.vantagecontrols.com.

About Legrand, North America
​​​​​​​ Legrand is a global specialist in electrical and digital building infrastructures. Its comprehensive offering of solutions for use in commercial, industrial and residential markets makes it a benchmark for customers worldwide. Innovation for a steady flow of new products with high added value is a prime vector for growth, including, in particular, connected devices stemming from Legrand’s global Eliot (Electricity and IoT) program. Legrand reported sales of $5.3 billion in 2015. Legrand has a strong presence in North and Central America, with a portfolio of well-known product lines that include C2G, Cablofil, Electrorack, Luxul, Middle Atlantic, Nuvo, OCL, On-Q, Ortronics, Pass & Seymour, Pinnacle, QMotion, Quiktron, Raritan, Solarfective, Vantage, Wattstopper, and Wiremold. Legrand is listed on Euronext Paris and is a component stock of indexes including the CAC40, FTSE4Good, MSCI World, ASPI, Corporate Oekom Rating and DJSI (ISIN code FR0010307819) www.legrand.us.

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Media Contact:
Mary Placido, Legrand Building Control Systems
(415) 218-3627
​​​​​​​mary.placido@legrand.us