Remote outside light

Look at the quinetic stuff

The switches can just stick on a wall (no wiring) or you can get a fob remote, single or multi-channel receivers, single or multi-channel switches, flexible pairing between switces and receivers, they do an LED flood with built in receiver (but only go up to 50W)

Son has installed a RF switched relay off EBay which has a little key fob in his drive. It works on 433MHz over 25 / 30 yds. Path is partially obstructed by various things- wood shed trees etc. It was under a tenner. Chinese of course.

Can you get me a link to it?

Mike

Do you really need one that bright with a led ?

All the philips hue lights can do that.

The hue system has both white only and what they call white ambience which allows you to change the color temperature but don?t have multi color.

Philips Hue off amazon.

I have a couple of b/q ones and its not so much the remote, its the tendency for the plug in switches to go deaf over time. Time was I could flash my garden lights from out in the street inside a cab to help a driver find my place, it gradually reduced until you needed to be on the front path to work. Others inside now only work right up against the switch, and no its not the battery in the remotes either. Its the switch either being made insensitive by crud on the mains or it just goes deaf. I have one which you have to bang to get the relay to turn off when you have actuated it too. I don't think they were built to last. Brian

Muddymike brought next idea :

An Alexa controllable Smart Socket, if you have wifi?

Brian Gaff (Sofa) explained on 28/12/2020 :

I have not had any such problems with mine. I have had two multi-control kits, 3 or 4 RF switches to each kit. The first had just one button, which did both on and off, so unless you could see what you were switching...

The second was much better, separate on/off buttons, plus master on/off and I still use part of this kit, though I have replaced most of what it did with Alexa Smart Sockets, to allow automatic control.

Yes

Is that a flood light, looks like just a bulb.

Mike

Do you mean actual power consumed or incandescent equivalent ?

They do have a floodlight. Not cheap tho.

Bloody expensive and still not 100w.

Mike

I don?t believe that you actually need 100W power consumption with a well designed led flood.

Here is an example of what 100W of electrical input to a LED device can achieve.

You cannot put that item inside a globe. It's powerful enough, it almost needs a bit of fan cooling from the back. Fixturing that would be a challenge. You don't want to fry it and kill it in short order.

Being Chinese, I'm sure it dissipates 120W of electricity, but they could be forgiven if the lumens were about half of that.

Just for the record, LEDs work best if they "bounce off a ceiling". That gives the nicest diffuse light. There are many light sources we place outside which are "eye burners" and you have to be careful where you position them, how you shape the light cone and so on.

One of the reasons the corn cob lights work well, is the vast array of separate LEDs used. This approach avoids phosphor smothering that happens when you try to make a point source out of a really big LED. Even the 1" disc arrays tend to smother. The corn cob should be pretty efficient (even compensating for Chinese lumin fabrication).

I have a couple conventional screw-in LED flood:

Philips 120W equivalent 1200 lumens (which is actually 90W equivalent) 14W input power

If we buy 7 of those, we get 8400 lumens. And, because being floods, they have reflector and Fresnel lens, they can be pointed at a target. Those things are miserable, and the last time I used them, I bounced them off the carport ceiling to tame the light. That's while putting the winter tires on the car (floor jack, jack stands). Those aren't eye-safe if you get hit in the face by one. You'll be seeing the retinal burn the next day.

There are also an unending supply of this form factor. This particular one uses an array LED source on a substrate. These run off about 40VDC that the SMPS in the light has to power.

Apparently you *can* buy 200 lumen/watt lamps, but only if you live in Dubai ...

Very Interesting. Although it pointedly mentions Philips and criticises them, all the other domestic LED lamp manufacturers must know about underrunning lamps to increase their life too.

Mike I got to ask what are you trying illuminate? I have a 30W LED flood light that well illuminates the target area of approx 25m2 and beyond. If need be I could work by it except being a single point of light you would have shadows to contend with. 100W you are talking about tennis courts and car parks.

Here is one example

Richard

Page 2, efficacy plot (green line).

Yes, low current gives enhanced output, but notice that it's only at the bottom of the operating area. You need a lot of LEDs to do it that way.

One bulb contains a lot of LEDs.

You need multiple bulbs for a lighting job.

$$$ = Perfect for Dubai.

The only way such a thing would gain traction here, is if there was a government mandate for a certain level of bulb efficiency.

If you look at what Dubai uses for police cars, you get some idea of how they think there.

I suspect one of the assumptions in the circuit design there, is that the voltage on mains "stays within specs". This would not help me, because my voltage is pretty well always out of spec. Right now, I checked my Kill-O-Watt meter and the voltage is right on the edge of the max allowed. This would not be the ideal operating point for a capacitive dropper design. The nice thing about SMPS powered bulbs, is they can have a much wider voltage range.

Paul

STWNFI wants a floodlight she can switch on from the kitchen to illuminate as much of our back garden as possible to keep an eye on our elderly dog. However we have 3/4 acre back garden!

The best place to mount one is on the electricity pole at the corner of the detached garage block hence I need one that can be switched on remotely from the kitchen. We already have four PIR lights illuminating the drive, yard and workshop entry.

I have now mounted a 100w LED flood on the pole temporarily fed from a remote control switch that plugs into a 13amp socket hanging on an extension lead inside the garage door window.

This has allowed me to work out that the remote will work through the garage door window from the kitchen window so next stage is to install a

Now she has use of this she has asked if another can be mounted on the workshop to cover further areas of the back garden!

Mike

Putting a (flashing?) LED collar on the dog might make a bit more sense ...

That would show where she is but not what she is doing!

Mike