Thread: Motion Sensored Lights?

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Hi everyone! I've been searching around on the web all night trying to figure out how to do this but so far I haven't found anything. What I am wanting to do is to have my black light go off and then my strobe light come on at some point after the visitors come up on the porch. I'm thinking using remote controls would probably not be a good idea due to being dark. Would anyone have any good ideas on how to do this or any links pointing me in the right direction? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

Hey Matt,
What you need is a 120 Volt SPDT relay and an outdoor motion sensor like the ones at hardware stores for security lights. You would wire from the sensor to the relay. Then you would also wire power to the relay C and on the NC you'd wire it to your Black light and the NO would go to the strobe. Then when motion is detected, the relay would be powered turning off the black light and the strobe on. It sounds harder than it really is.

Is it necessary to turn the blacklight off? Won't the strobes just wash out the light from the blacklight?

Thanks for the advice and help. Is there somewhere I can get the SPDT relay? This is all new to me so I will be doing this through trial and error I'm sure.

Compoast, I'm wanting to have the black light to go off so that the visitors can't see nothing. Then a few seconds later the strobe comes on

Originally Posted by Matt

Compoast, I'm wanting to have the black light to go off so that the visitors can't see nothing. Then a few seconds later the strobe comes on

It sounds like you need a delay on relay, I found some of these on ebay last year, ebay is a great source for both types of relay.

I think this is what you are looking for. I have order form him before and gotten great products.
Flip/Flop Control Box

Originally Posted by Matt

Thanks for the advice and help. Is there somewhere I can get the SPDT relay? This is all new to me so I will be doing this through trial and error I'm sure.

Compoast, I'm wanting to have the black light to go off so that the visitors can't see nothing. Then a few seconds later the strobe comes on

You can buy relays from RadioShack. This one is a DPDT but would still work to switch the loads.

If you're wanting a delay of a few seconds of darkness, this solution will not work for you as the relay is simply going to turn off the black light and turn on the strobe at the same time. You would need some sort of logic controller to handle this or you would need an additional relay wired with a capacitor and resistor to act as a momentary type of relay. Then when power is cut from the black light it would power the momentary relay on until the capacitor was fully charged and then switch off so the strobe would be on the NC of the momemtary relay setup.

The other option would be to look for a cheap controller board like the Prop-1 and you'd be able to program in your delays for switching the devices.

Thanks again everyone for the help. I'll let you all know what I end up doing. I've been needing something like this for a long time so I'm pretty determined to get it done this year