120 Volts Micro Switch

Im an amateur/novice at electronics. Mostly I'm interested in electronics to
fix things and make life a little easier around the house.

My problem is that I have a light that is on a switch outside the house. I
want to turn it on and off from inside the house. It's in an awkward place
and makes it hard and unsightly to run 120v Wires and switch box etc. into
the house. I would like to build an electronic switch that would only
require me to run a small wire to an electronic switch from the light into
the house. Can anyone point me to a schematic for this type of thing that I
can build. I want the switch to provide its own power to the low voltage
switch in the house. I don't want to be fussing with some sort of AC/DC
adapter to provide the switch power.

Can anyone help me out.

Thanks.

 

If it's just a light, your best bet would be to just get a piece of
ordinary extension cord wire, or even speaker wire, in a color that's
easy to hide, and mount a flush-mount extension switch. In any case,
you'll have to string some kind of wire anyway, and lamp cord is designed
for prettiness.

Good Luck!
Rich

 

You could do this with an RF (wireless switch) and not require any installed
wiring. These are available in Canada for turning on car engine heater in
the winter without going outdoors.

Jack

 

Interesting idea. Yes I know that I will have to still use some wire. It
will just be so much easier with smaller gage. I can run it into the house
put it along baseboards etc. I would still like to use a small electronic
switch with low voltage wire. Can anyone point me to where I can find this
kind of thing.

Thanks.

 

You can use X10 devices for this. Google X10. There are lots of
dealers. X10 sends a signal over the house wiring. So, you would mount
a reciever inside the lamp housing and the transmitter in a convenient
switch box inside the house.
ERS

 

I did this once using an old rotary type dimmer. Bridged the wiper to
the high side of the pot with a CDS cell. Pointed that cell at a LED
that I mounted in the front housing of the dimmer then turning on that
LED turned on the dimmer. Adjust the pot to achieve the proper
threshold. It's not wireless but you could use any LED and a wall wart
it would be transformer isolated, opto isolated and low voltage.

Richard

 

news wrote:

That can be easily handled by a pair of X-10 devices: a lamp module for
that light (screw-in or wall switch replacement) and a mini-controller,
which you install in a convenient place. Once you try it, you'll want all
your house on X-10 switches ;-). Very easy to install, everything is
pretty much plug-and-play. Do eBay search for X10 (X 10, X-10, you got the
idea), you'll normally find dozens of sweet deals there.

--
Dmitri Abaimov, RCDD
http://www.cabling-design.com
Cabling Forum, color codes, pinouts and other useful resources for
premises cabling users and pros
http://www.cabling-design.com/homecabling
Residential Cabling Guide
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