THE STORAGE TRAILER LED DOOR LIGHT
Here we have another little pet project whose goal is to use up some parts and components that were laying around in the storage trailer after having dismantled a past project. A few years back I built an area light to illuminate the main driveway where we park at, using a series of 12v 10w LED spotlights, all mounted on a board and suspended on a pole ten feet off the ground. This light was powered off a marine battery and cycled on and off by a cheap 12v timer. Fast forward and the battery had died along with the wood frame and other materials that made up the old light structure. It would've been more expensive to try and resurrect this old light setup versus buying one of the self contained LED/lithium battery street lights that can be bought at Walmart or online. After replacing my old LED light structure with one of those newer LED lights, only keeping the pole and part of the old structure to hold the pole, I was left with some components that were still good, but had no use anywhere as of yet. I came up with an idea to use one of these LED spotlights as a light source to illuminate the immediate area around the entry door to the Storage Trailer. I would also use some other electrical components, including a dusk/dawn sensor, to set this light up to illuminate the door area at night and go off during the day. Since the LED is a 12v unit, I would also have to add a 12v power supply to power the LED.
My plan was to set the dusk/dawn sensor to cycle power to a standalone outlet, mounted in its own junction box, which would in turn supply power for the 12v power supply. The outlet and the sensor would get power from another outlet in the trailer that is supplying power to the interior LED lights. That older outlet is switched on and off by an external switch, so I would have to tap directly from the power supply wires to feed power to our new hardware. The first thing I had to do was remove an old 12v area light that was part of the original camper trailer. Once that was gone, the hole that was in the wall for the old light's wires was too big for the dusk/dawn sensor, so I had to drill another smaller hole next to this large hole with which to secure the sensor. Afterward I mounted the bracket for the LED light just above the larger hole so I could route the LED's wires through said hole. I will have to find a way to plug this large hole later on so wasps or other critters have no point of entry. From there I also mounted a blue plastic junction box from my stash of electrical components, just above the old outlet previously mentioned and installed an outlet within, hooking up a short length of Romex cable to the outlet.
With the new outlet in place, I disassembled the old outlet, isolating the neutral line from the power supply wires. The switch for this old outlet is a switched neutral vs a switched hot line, so I had to isolate the neutral line before the switch and wired up the neutrals for the new outlet and the dusk/dawn sensor to the neutral along with the neutral from the switch for the old outlet. The black hot wire for the sensor went to the hot power wire, both of which were hooked up to the hot terminal on the old outlet. The red wire on the sensor, which was the output to the controlled load, went to the hot/black wire going to the new outlet. With the two outlet boxes newly wired up and covered back up, I took my 12v power supply and snipped the plug off and spliced the bare wires with the wires to the 12v LED light. With that I plugged the 12v power supply to the new outlet, then restored power to the trailer.
Upon restoring power, the sensor cycled on automatically. After a couple minutes the sensor cycled off, having been illuminated by the daylight. I covered the sensor with my hand and held it there for a couple minutes, before the sensor cycled on, turning the LED light on. Uncovering the sensor turned the LED off again. With that, the dusk/dawn LED door light is completed, and should be ready to rock and roll, allowing us to be able to walk up to the Storage Trailer's door and use the new keypad lock without having to use an external headlight or flashlight to illuminate the way. It is these types of projects that will allow me to utilize the myriad components laying around the compound. I still have three more of these LED spotlights, so I'm running ideas through my head as to what I want to do with these lights, preferring to use them all simultaneously, since they will need an extra 12v power supply to power them. Whatever I come up with will be showcased either here or on the TIC insider website, so stay tuned.
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