Since it’s been working for a while, I thought I’d share my Dim-Floods modification.
Heath-Zenith makes a Dual-Brite motion sensor floodlight that has the ability to come on at dusk at a dimmed level, and when the motion sensor is triggered, the lights go full on. After a timeout, the floods return to dimmed. That way, you can have low-level lighting all night and bright light when motion tripped.
I wanted to emulate that with my PR511s. See diagram.
Design
In the local wall box, I fed the HOT feed into a WS13A Relay Switch Module as the master Enable/Disable switch. That output fed a Levitron HCM-10 1000W Dimmer module.
From the local wall box, I fed neutral, full-HOT and dimmed-HOT to the PR511 box. The PR511 does not power the lights directly; rather it powers the lights through SPDT relay. This allows the selection of full feed or dimmed feed to the lights.
Operation
When the WS13A Relay Switch Module is closed (enabled), the floodlight circuits are energized. A dusk/dawn controller sends an ON command at dusk and an OFF command at dawn to the Levitron HCM-10 Dimmer module. This module has the remember-dimmed-setting feature, so it will always come ON to the pre-programmed dim level. The dimmed-HOT AC level is sent via the relay to the two sets of floodlights.
When the motion sensor triggers, the output of the PR511 pulls the relay to the full AC output of the PR511, causing the lights to operate at full brightness. The PR511 now energizes the relay and powers the floodlights.
When the PR511 timer times out, the floodlights and the relay are de-energized, and the relay falls back to its normal position. This again feeds dimmed AC level to the two sets of floodlights.
Yes, I thought about sending dim and full X10 commands to the Levitron HCM-10 Dimmer module, but I wanted to minimize X10 traffic. In this manner, the only X10 commands are dusk ON and dawn OFF. The motion sensor operation - and therefore dim-to-bright operation is locally controlled in hardware alone.
I still get full bright control via the PR511 on command, and I can turn the floodlights full ON even if the dim feed is off, just in case I want to turn my floodlights on during the day. And when the security system flashes the lights, I get bright-dim-bright-dim instead of bright-dark-bright-dark.
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Topic: PR511 Dim-Floods Modification (Read 8192 times)