"Limiter" for outside lights

[John Rumm]

If you do it like (see how the switch is set to override the PIR and force the lights on):

it should be fine. The switched live is typically just connected to the permanent live by a relay in the PIR. So if you apply live to the switched wire you are just either connecting live to a floating wire if the PIR is off, or making a parallel connection if its on.

[Peter B]

The discussion has set off apace whilst I stepped out for a minute - all contributions gratefully received and digested folks.

Sounds like the sort of thing I was thinking of.

It's a run of four 2D 20W lamps plus a "normal" lamp over the doorway, fed from a spur to the photocell to the lamps, if memory serves correctly. OK, so it's only 100W or so, but once I'm home and in for the night they don't really serve any purpose. The cost bit was probably a little flippant sorry, I just didn't want any suggestions for complex bits of kit costing a hundred quid or more.

Granted, it's more of a time + light level equation than simply either or. Having thought about it, prompted by the bundle of suggestions, it might behoove me to arrange the lights differently so that the 2D lamps are on (photocell + timer) and the lamp over the door is just on a standalone PIR. That should give me a workable solution ... I think.

[robert]

Or

use one of these in my yard light , comes on at dusk goes off at more or less the same time throughout the year.