ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area light/timer puzzle.

I'm afraid there's no quick, easy, cheap solution.

One option is to have power to all the lights, all the time ... then have a timer at each pole, feeding a photoeye at each fixture, controlling each light. The drawback to this method is that every light will momentarily energize when the photocell is energized by the timer.

Your other choice is a better timer at each pole. That is, forget about 'dusk to dawn' and use an 'astronomical' timer. Such a timer is already programmed with sunset / sunrise times for each day, and will allow you to program a specific time 'off' as well.

The thing with battery back up devices is they are not typically design for multiple and or long power outages. For example a resi smoke alarm. The battery carries the device but can do it for about a total time of 8 hours and it does not recharge the battery like a fire alarm panel battery. It's is important to to see how the battery is used for the device. If the switch recharges the battery then that would be a great and economical option. A battery operated timer would require a regular battery replacement and it wouldnt be well liked by the customer

Also using any device in a way not intended may void the listing and warranty

Sparky That is what made the Paragon so attractive. It doesn't use a battery, it uses a capacitor that will take lots of cycles.

http://www.illinoiscapacitor.com/pdf/Papers/supercapacitors.pdf

Cool. I need to keep that in mind

Update

The paragon worked and my wife's electrician thinks she is a genius. He is proposing it in other places now.