Steinel photo sensor for outside lights

[AA410]

Hi all hope you can help can you wire up a steinel sensor for outside light and have an over ride switch if so how do you wire this up many thanks

 

[Richard Burns]

Wire the photocell and switch in parallel to the lamp.
Diagram:

 

[AA410]

will that be ok with these switches ?

 

[Richard Burns]

Generally yes, if you have an odd design of switch then it may have problems, but usually any photocell can have 230V applied to the off side of the switch without problems. For a steinel you may need to connect the override switch neutral to the second neutral terminal on the sensor (if it has one) that is connected directly to the lamp.

 

[La Poste]

I have a quick question about this.

With the parallel wiring you can over ride the photo cell to turn the lights on but you can't over ride the photo cell to turn the light off.

I mean if the photo cell is set to switch on at dusk why would you want to over ride this function and switch the outside lights on in the daytime?

However if the photocell keeps the light on all night and switches them off at dawn surely it would be better to have an over ride switch that turns the lights off when you want it to so they don't stay on all night.

 

[Richard Burns]

Makes sense, why have lights on in the day, unless it is in a dark area like a tunnel or such.

The steinel photocell I looked at has an in built function to turn on the lights at dusk and then turn them off a few hours later and then on again near dawn.

You could easily provide the override off function by inserting a series switch in the lamp feed after the photocell, this would mean the photocell is always powered but not the lamp.

can't think at the moment but a better bet (if not already incorporated) would be a relay with timer.

 

[La Poste]

The trouble with outside lights is sometimes you can't get a permanent live from anywhere, all you have is the switched live and the permanent live can be anywhere within the house.

I like your idea of parallel over ride I never really thought of this before but personally after looking at photocells I think the best idea is as you have stated a timer light switch situated at the outside light switch and then a relay because these timer light switches can only handle very small loads.

The timer light switch should have an over ride function to switch the lights on or off so that everything you want can be done at the switch, a much better idea.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/7-day-digital-security-light-switch-37966

 

[AA410]

All sorted lads many thanks for your help