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Porch Light problem


k6ccc

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I found a solution to a problem and I wanted to share my solution.  The problem is that my front porch light is very visible from the street.  Over the years I keep turning the intensity down (it's on a LOR channel), and it's still too bright.  The solution is that I installed a piece of cardboard in the light fixture so that the light is completely blocked towards the street and unblocked towards the house.  Now I can leave the porch light on at a useful intensity and not have it shine brightly towards the street.  The photo below does not really do it justice, but you will notice that you don't see any direct light from the porch light, but you can see the shadow from the wreath on the front door being cast on the wall.  Took about 10 seconds to install the cardboard, and will take about that long to remove it after the season is concluded.

Porch_Light.jpg

 

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Great call. I was waiting for the baseball bat or something. Kind of like my wifes oak tree. She wanted it and it has grown to tall and broad in just 4 years that it blocks one set of windows for Christmas Lights. Along with some shrubs.

Well the tree will be cut down after decorations are taken down. Reasoning, planted over water main, cant have that!

JR

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I think that's exactly the solution I was looking for. Question though, how did you wire the light up as an LOR channel?


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1 hour ago, greg.duguid said:

I think that's exactly the solution I was looking for. Question though, how did you wire the light up as an LOR channel?

Greg,

I have a 16 channel AC controller in the attic of my house.  Four of the channels from that controller have short cables that go into a electrical box that in turn has the wiring for three lights in the top of a bay window and the forth is the front porch light.  That controller is used year round.  For Christmas, there are six strings of 200 LED lights on a wall that are controlled by that controller, and one channel is used to control a relay that supplies power to the amplifiers for the speakers in the front yard.  BTW, there is an eight channel AC controller in my garage that similarly is used to control a light on the end of a wall out near where we park the cars in the driveway.  It's primary function is for security.  During the non-show season, those are controlled as part of my landscape lighting shows.  For what it's worth, those are the only two AC controllers that I have, and they were the two controllers that I replaced after the 2016 spring sale so that everything was able to be run on enhanced LOR networking.

 

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  • 4 months later...

I have been thinking that when I have my house built that I would have certain outlet's and light's go to a LOR A/C controller. So they could be controlled year round. I am also thinking of pre-running all low voltage and data lines for certain aspects of how my house will be built. With the change from running A/C controllers for my plan's i will now be using RGB so changes a number of my design features as well.

 

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33 minutes ago, The Pest said:

I have been thinking that when I have my house built that I would have certain outlet's and light's go to a LOR A/C controller. So they could be controlled year round. I am also thinking of pre-running all low voltage and data lines for certain aspects of how my house will be built. With the change from running A/C controllers for my plan's i will now be using RGB so changes a number of my design features as well.

If you run conduit, just remember that Class 1 (120V) and Class 2 (low voltage, LOR network,ethernet) can't occupy the same raceway (conduit) without a divider between the classes ..

If you have a crawl space, you can also run a 'pull wire'  to facilitate low voltage runs that do not require conduit

Remember to run something under driveways and sidewalks, even if you don't put wires at this time.

 

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1 hour ago, TheDucks said:

Remember to run something under driveways and sidewalks, even if you don't put wires at this time.

+100 on that.

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Yea already in the plans, what ever company i contract to build my house will probably hate me with all the extra's being run during framing stage. But i will probably do most of the specialty stuff after hours to save my self $. I am aware if the high/low voltage separation, i have in the past asked if anyone knew of a 20 pin male/female quick connect for high voltage but still have been unable to locate anything over 8 poles. i was thinking of running the supply electrics for mega tree to panel mounted LOR in electrical room and just have 1 or 2 connections at base. for just lights was planning on a 32 leg super strand r,g,b,w,p,o, but have since changed gears for a 32 leg round pixel tree, and i'm thinking of possible ways to do each pixel a full 360 deg x,y,&z axis maybe will come up with answer on that issue at some point. 

 

If i win the lottery i'm thing of doing a whole house control system with LOR. meaning every outlet, light fixture would be a LOR Channel. I know i will have to run relay boards for outlets, might figure out a way to do each light fixture a rgb device?

 

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44 minutes ago, The Pest said:

<snip> i have in the past asked if anyone knew of a 20 pin male/female quick connect for high voltage but still have been unable to locate anything over 8 poles. i was thinking of running the supply electrics for mega tree to panel mounted LOR in electrical room and just have 1 or 2 connections at base. for just lights was planning on a 32 leg super strand r,g,b,w,p,o, but have since changed gears for a 32 leg round pixel tree, and i'm thinking of possible ways to do each pixel a full 360 deg x,y,&z axis maybe will come up with answer on that issue at some point. 

 

For low current (10A pins de-rated when used in multiples to as low as 3A) Molex  (.093) series is good for 300V use

http://www.molex.com/molex/products/datasheet.jsp?part=active/0003091152_CRIMP_HOUSINGS.xml

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