El wire with a photo electric cell to turn on at dusk &

jimstamper · Post by **jimstamper** » Thu May 29, 2008 3:41 pm

Hi,

In the past I've had a art project on the Playa and each evening I rode out to the site, turned on the blinky's and then in the AM repeated to turn them off.

I'm wondering if anyone has figured out how to make LED or El wire, turn on and off by itself with a photo electric cell. I'll still visit the artwork if it is approved from time to time. I had the business card of a burner friendly group who sold me my last batch of el wire, but can't find it... years go by.

I've taken apart a cheap solar patio light and no matter how I wire it I can't trick the photo electric cell to work with el wire or even a light bulb. so ok I'm not a electrical guy. Any help anyone? Jim/ aka the dusty guy.

StevenGoodman · Post by **StevenGoodman** » Thu May 29, 2008 4:06 pm

I have used a kit built light sensitve relay to control LEDs for a project at Burning Man before. I was running custom LEDs off of two 12v deep cycle batteries, that I only wanted on at night.

I used the kit on this website (Model 80-103); although I just bought it at Fry's.

http://www.oselectronics.com/ose_p33.htm

However, it pulls 25mA, which will drain down a standard 9v battery before the end of the week. I got one of the bigger square 9v batteries and it worked well.

This year I am being lazy, and just using off the shelf solar LED strings and the wimpy little LED floods.

Martini Steve

jimstamper · Post by **jimstamper** » Thu May 29, 2008 5:23 pm

The nearest Frys to me is 120 miles, by luckm going that way tomorrow! This will give me about 80 days to fuss with it. Jim aka the dusty guy. Thank you very very much.

gaminwench · Post by **gaminwench** » Thu May 29, 2008 8:49 pm

LiveWire neon- burners all.....

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Fri May 30, 2008 3:31 am

Would a standard industrial photocell work?
They are wired for ac, but as far as I know they use the sun to power the switching.
I would expect them to turn dc on and off with the right connections, but I haven't checked.
I need a instant response solar switch and I've thought of modifying a cell of this type to remove the damping against flicker.
Any suggestions?

Zhust · Post by **Zhust** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:08 am

jimstamper wrote:I'm wondering if anyone has figured out how to make LED or El wire, turn on and off by itself with a photo electric cell.

I made one of these last year for 12 volts (but it'll work fine as-is for 9-volts and will probably need a bit of tweaking for 3 volts). It's posted on the Alternative Energy Zone wiki.

Zhust · Post by **Zhust** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:16 am

gyre wrote:Would a standard industrial photocell work?
They are wired for ac, but as far as I know they use the sun to power the switching.

I took one apart a while back and it's still sitting here on my desk. The way it works is it uses a CdS cell to drive some power through a resistor. In the daytime, the CdS cell has low resistance, current flows, and the resistor gets warm, causing a bimetalic strip to bend, opening the switching circuit. At night, the CdS cell has a high resistance, the resistor cools, and the circuit closes, turning on the light.

Of course, not all dusk-to-dawn sensors work exactly like this one.

gyre wrote:I need a instant response solar switch and I've thought of modifying a cell of this type to remove the damping against flicker.
Any suggestions?

The only thing you could use is the CdS cell as the rest of the mechanism is specifically designed to damp against flicker. It behaves like a variable resistor that's around 100 ohms in bright sun and over 100K-ohms in the dark.

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Fri May 30, 2008 12:12 pm

Thanks. I figured it used resistance in some fashion, but not that way.
Probably explains why they fail sometimes.
I always have better luck with fisher pierce, but have had success with the high amp conduit model by tork.

Any idea of the output from the cell?
I need to make it as sensitive as possible, but I would prefer to use a relay if I can.
I want a flashlight beam to trigger it, a door opening in sunlight would be the maximum input, so no direct sunlight probably.

Zhust · Post by **Zhust** » Sat May 31, 2008 6:51 am

gyre wrote:Any idea of the output from the cell?

You can read all about it on Wikipedia. It's basically just a light-sensitive resistor. The more light, the less resistance. As such it doesn't produce any voltage on its own so you'll need a circuit to drive it.

For your purposes, you'll have to filter out the low-frequency changes due to ambient light (i.e. as the sun moves across the sky) and look for the high frequency transition when the light beam is broken (when things get sharply, slightly darker).

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Sat May 31, 2008 7:56 am

I'm looking for the reaction to any light at all.
Looks like this won't work.
I need a photocell generating power I think.
All the ones I have, have a relay attached.
I thought you were talking about a resistor element attached to the relay.
I think I'll need to start from scratch.
I have a circuit somewhere using a simple set of radio shack parts, but I have no idea where it is.
As long as the cell can trigger a relay, I just need to make sure it can't overdrive anything.
I have some hyperefficient 12 volt relays, but I may need a different voltage.
There are rate-of-change detectors.
I want a reaction to anything at all.

I want no power consumption and a quick reaction to any light.
These are for use in total darkness.

Dustdevil · Post by **Dustdevil** » Sat May 31, 2008 6:20 pm

I surround my Playa art with a lot of El Wire. I wanted the same thing. The link below had what I needed and it works perfectly. Michael is on the Playa resource list when that gets published as well.

http://michaelslighttoys.com/

Doctor Pancakes · Post by **Doctor Pancakes** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 4:22 pm

[quote="Dustdevil"]I surround my Playa art with a lot of El Wire. I wanted the same thing. The link below had what I needed and it works perfectly. Michael is on the Playa resource list when that gets published as well.

http://michaelslighttoys.com/[/quote]

I didn't see anything on that site matching the original request (photo-cell gizmo). Can you be more specific please? (what's it called, URL?)

Thanks!

- Doctor Pancakes

Dustdevil · Post by **Dustdevil** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 12:34 pm

Actually I have never spent much time on his site. I told him what I needed and he pulled out this little device and plugged it into my controller and his worked perfectly for three years. If his phone number is not on his site, let me know and I will get it. He does not live too far from me if I can help in any way.

Jack

Josh-n-Cody · Post by **Josh-n-Cody** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:26 am

if you use 12 volt EL wire... you could simply use a landscape light timer... they have both time set and photo cell set...

cunfuzelled · Post by **cunfuzelled** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:38 pm

if you purchase a photoelectric sensor from
http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/browse ... photo&Ntx=
and connect it to a normal open solenoid that is closed at the voltage and watage of your sensor. and can withstand your voltage and watage of your load which may also be availible on newark or http://www.watlow.com or ebay. your daytime draw will be whatever your max wattage of the sensor plus your solenoid is. shouldnt be to much daytime load

fuze

rjcalliger · Post by **rjcalliger** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:45 pm

If you want to start with the patio light idea..which is pretty clever,
oh-- have you solved this by any chance?

If not hook, up the patio light by it's direction and where it says
to wire it in an elctircla box put a plug on the black and white wire..
assuming you can do this ok without killing anyone? verify with bulb in
that the photocell works...be sure you dont have a motion activated
paito light BTW..blocking the PC ought now to turn your lightbul on
and off a-ok..then replace the lightbulb in the circuit with your driver for
the EL circuit...using the same wiring circuit sans bulb socket...

And another route is that one of the vendors sells a photocell
integrated right into the EL driver! as wellas one responds to music,,
R

In the past I've had a art project on the Playa and each evening I rode out to the site, turned on the blinky's and then in the AM repeated to turn them off.

I'm wondering if anyone has figured out how to make LED or El wire, turn on and off by itself with a photo electric cell. I'll still visit the artwork if it is approved from time to time. I had the business card of a burner friendly group who sold me my last batch of el wire, but can't find it... years go by.

I've taken apart a cheap solar patio light and no matter how I wire it I can't trick the photo electric cell to work with el wire or even a light bulb. so ok I'm not a electrical guy. Any help anyone? Jim/ aka the dusty guy.[/quote]

skibear · Post by **skibear** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:14 am

Why? This seems like overkill.

A Switch labeled ON / OFF would only need
to be cycled 7 times -one for each day)

(pet peeve: switches labled 0 / 1 are too geekish)
hth

rjcalliger · Post by **rjcalliger** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:19 am

Well the man wants it automated...so why fault another for their
basic human rights of freedom, life, liberty and fucking automated
dusk/dawn lights...

and its pretty geekish typing on a computer which you seem to do
well at lol...

just kidding...we have all entered the geeks world whether we
like it or not...
Burning Man happens becasuse of geeks..EVERY dept has a
(geeky) mailing list on a (geeky) computer made by?

GEEKS///

the bible was in error--Geeks, NOT Meeks shall, strike that; have
inherited the world.

Peac e and Joy

dont take my rant too seriously, it is not personal...I respect YOUR
right
to dislike geekism...and I repsecvt your right to criticism, even when for
the sake of emphasis, it departs from reality!

Fucxking a...we are so close to the Burn I smell the smoke already!!!!

El wire with a photo electric cell to turn on at dusk &

El wire with a photo electric cell to turn on at dusk &

el wire on off at dusk thanks.

Re: El wire with a photo electric cell to turn on at dusk &a

Re: El wire with a photo electric cell to turn on at dusk &a