Simple Light Controller - Parking Lights - Timer Plus Motion

[personalt]

I am trying to set up some lighting controls for my brother. He has a home based dog daycare with 6 parking spaces up the hill. We plan to put two lights up there.

Looking to have controls that
1. User a photo sensors so lights only come on at dark
2. He is open only until 8p. Af 8pm the lights can turn off and then only on if the motion sensor at front of driveway triggers.

We ran two underground conduits from the house to a junction point and continued the two conduits down to each light. So I have the ability to do low voltage wiring either from the lights to a junciton point or back to the house. We figured we might have a low voltage motion sensor.

I know I could do this with my setup with CQC and UPB switches but I am looking to keep it simple here. Is there any stand alone device that acts a light timer with interfaces for photo sensors and a motion sensor and allows for some basic rules?

 

[WayneW]

Put a timer ("on" at noon, "off" at 8 pm) in series with a photocell. That will give you the sunset to 8 pm you desire.
You can parallel wire that with a motion detector. That will give you motion lights from sunset to sunrise, which is partially redundant, but shouldn't be a problem.
Depending upon the photocell and motion unit you use, you may with to keep them isolated with relays so you aren't back-feeding them dangerously.

 

[mustangcoupe]

Put a timer ("on" at noon, "off" at 8 pm) in series with a photocell. That will give you the sunset to 8 pm you desire.

In that case When your phtotcell turns off wont it kill power to the timer and loose time?

 

[personalt]

Simple and smart at the same time. I like the main logic in your idea - if I cant find one controller, run the two tiggers in parrell.

I was looking at the intermatic light controller to act as the timer. It does timer and has a photosensor.
http://www.intermatic.com/products/grassli...ontrollers.aspx.
This thing can do 'noon-8pm when dark outside' with no problem.

The motion after 8pm is what I am most concerned with. The motion sensor needs to sit 100 feet from the junction box(at the last light pole) to pick up the driveway. My original plan was to use the second conduit for a low voltage motion sensor and put a controller at the junction.

The simplest way to put this in to place is if I can I could find a relay that I could put in my junction box. IT would need to trigger 120V for 20 minutes after being triggered from a low voltage motion that is 150 feet away. Anyone know of a relay that I could use for that?

If not, I would have to use my 2nd conduit to run 12/3 out to the motion sensor (at the far light) using the red as a traveler to bring the power back on motion. Cost for that I think would be $150 for underground rated romex. I would then need to add a 120v photocell in series with the traveler from the motion sensor to make sure motion during the day doesn't provide power to the light. I would also need to make sure the 120v motion has a built in timer

Can anyone recommend a relay that acts as a 20 minutes timer upon trigger of a low voltage motion sensor?

If not can anyone recommend a 120v outdoor motion sensor with a built in timer?

 

[WayneW]

Put a timer ("on" at noon, "off" at 8 pm) in series with a photocell. That will give you the sunset to 8 pm you desire.

In that case When your phtotcell turns off wont it kill power to the timer and loose time?

I was assuming a mechanical timer where the timer motor would be wired to a constant power supply. Wire the timer contacts (ie output) in series with the photocell. If you are using an electronic timer, the wiring may be a bit trickier, as MC stated.

 

[WayneW]

Can anyone recommend a relay that acts as a 20 minutes timer upon trigger of a low voltage motion sensor?

If not can anyone recommend a 120v outdoor motion sensor with a built in timer?

For a relay with a 20 minute timer, the Elk-960 should work. http://www.elkproducts.com/products/elk-960.htm

For a nice versatile relay with a wide range of coil voltages, I like the RIBU1C or similar. http://www.functionaldevices.com/pdf/RIBU1C.pdf eBay is a good source.

Most HomeDepot/Lowes motion sensors let you adjust the length of time the light stays on.

 

[JonW]

I run all UPB devices - except for one - my driveway flood lights. I've used one of the X10 floodlights there for over 10 years. You can set the dusk/dawn sensitivity, motion sensitivity and the duration that the light stays on. It is a completely stand-alone device that requires no programming from the control panel to operate. (I don't even track the X-10 signals it sends.) I have toyed with the idea of adding a relay to it so I can tie it to a zone in the OmniPro just so I know when it triggers.

 

[personalt]

For a relay with a 20 minute timer, the Elk-960 should work. http://www.elkproducts.com/products/elk-960.htm

For a nice versatile relay with a wide range of coil voltages, I like the RIBU1C or similar. http://www.functionaldevices.com/pdf/RIBU1C.pdf eBay is a good source.

Most HomeDepot/Lowes motion sensors let you adjust the length of time the light stays on.

Anyone know if the ELK-960 resets its timer on multiple triggers? As per the manual it says you can set it to turn on with the trigger and it turns off when the timer expires. It doesnt seem to be clear if you get multiple triggers does the timer reset..

Just thinking out loud to myself. IF I use the ELK-960 and the 120 volt relay listed above it may make additional senses to use a low voltage timer and put the two tiggers in parrel to trigger the relay rather then having two 120V relays.

 

[fwd03]

Have you tried WebControl, a little board has 8 TTL output can drive the opto-isolated relay? It has 20 timers, and you can do the phto-resistor to its analog input. set the in the boolean run engine. Also you can use the motion sensor to trigger its TTL input to turn on the light after hours.