This neat little 12v PIR sensor has survived a year in the great outdoors, partly because it uses MOSFETs for switching rather than a relay. But it comes supplied without a daylight sensor, so it has always turned on during the day, wasting precious solar generated battery power. Here I fit the missing CdS (cadmium sulphide) light dependent resistor (LDR) to ensure it operates at night only.
By Julian
Youtuber, shed dweller, solar charge controller aficionado
goodSuper
That current could be mistaken as 0.8A instead of 8A. For this reason I have ALWAYS written my fractional numeric values with a ("0.x"), ie: 0.8A rather than .8A: that little dot is easy to miss!
Good thinking and fine execution Julian. Thanks for the video and this great tip. I wonder why products as such don't have such a small LDR that costs only pennies. Even valuable instruction to add it always missing. Thanks ro you Mr Julian the fine inspector.
I can't help but noticing you sound a lot like JackFrags (who has a gaming channel on YouTube) in the beginning of this video…
What was that site you used to look up the components??
Do you know how many milliamps this draws when in stand by and how much it does when on but not including the power consumption of the light.
Power conversion is a good thing to be into around solar power setups! Its nearly High Spring here and already my 12volt array is producing more than the batteries need, so no real motivation to experiment with bucks to get a bit more out ov panels. But the charging capability for the 24v bank(250AH gels) is severely lacking, and I want to try and run the fridge & freezer from that soon. So if I can get excess current from the 12v system into the 24v system I'll be happy. Hence the boost focus.
Tired of buck converters? I keep seeing new types with dubious new features and being tempted. I'm a power conversion nerd.
Just measured it:
In bright sunlight about 200Ω – in a dark place >10MΩ. A very wide range.
I'm getting tired ov buck converters so I re-configured the one on my bench to be a boost conv. Much more fun, and it will be useful because the idea is it will charge my 24volt battery bank with excess current from the 12volt solar array. Seems to be achieving nearly 90% efficiency, which is a hell ov a lot better than a battery charger plugged into an inverter! heh The only trouble is when it's unloaded the voltage raises to about 110 volts! Got to figure out a way to stop it from doing that..
Great job Julian. Good to see it working very well.
Brilliant! you could put some vasaline on the screws to stop the corrosion! I do that on all the outside lights I maintain!
I love trawling the non-food aisles in Aldi and Lidl – now and again they have some really cool stuff. But that night light sounds like a piece of garbage. I think I might have the same one (or something very similar).