Photocell Switches

[Thomarse]

Hi,

I have an outside light I am going to install on my patio. I am hoping to wire in a photocell switch to it so that it comes on automatically at night. Could anyone tell me where the cheapest place I could buy one would be and also is there anything I should watch out for, its a standard 240v exterior light.

One I have seen is here

(second one down) - any good?

Cheers

Tom

[Martin Pentreath]

Hi Thomarse,

You could be lazy and just use one of these instead:

I've just put one of these in my outside light: drilled a 20mm hole in the (plastic) case for it - took me about two mins to fit it and wire it. It comes with some gaskets and nuts which seal up the whole. It doesn't have an IP rating (to show to what extent it's resistant to dust and water ingress), but I think that's because it depends on what you install it into. Having fitted it, it seems to be at least as watertight as the (rather cheap) IP54 plastic light itself.

Personally I preferred this route because it's neater than having a separate photocell screwed to the wall. If you follow suit do make sure you fit the photocell so that it points up at the sky - even then I find they always seem to switch on too early and off too late.

Martin

[Harry Bloomfield]

Thomarse presented the following explanation :

That is about the usual cost, but you could pick one up over the counter at any electrical wholesaler - City Electrical, N&E etc.. Look in the yellow pages under Electrical Wholesalers.