I'm sure we've done this topic before but I've searched for PIR, security and floodlight this morning and can't find the topic at all. Maybe it was on another forum.
Last night the big security light at the back of the house pointing down the length of the garden to the field behind was going on and off all night.
It is situated behind a hanging basket foliage which was swinging like mad in the wind but surely this shouldn't cause it?
We reduced the amount of time it should stay on but that just made it go off and come back on again straight away.
The cats were all in, and even the resident hedgehog would have been tucked away somewhere by now.
Any ideas?
Pat
|
My understanding of PIR is that they are sensitive to heat differences between angular zones - a bit like petals on a flower when viewed from the top - so when something warm(er) moves between the zones it triggers.
If the basket was a different temp to the distant surroundings, and swinging about in the wind between zones, you may have the answer.
Or the above may be a load of tosh....
|
>>It is situated behind a hanging basket foliage which was swinging like mad in the wind but surely this shouldn't cause it?
It certainly would. These PIR's have a mind of their own in high winds.
|
It was being used as a landing beacon by UFO's.
The aliens have all landed now and dispersed into the Fens.
Note these are not the same aliens that do the crop picking.
|
>>Note these are not the same aliens that do the crop picking.
Quite right. They come a little earlier in the year...
|
|
Pat it's just the wind. Ours does it when some bushes about 15ft from the light are blown about.
|
Someone told me that in windy weather you can get 'blocks' of air of different temperature.
PIRs detect temperature change.
|
Thanks all, we'll see how it performs tonight before we start investigating then.
In the meantime, I'll resist looking at the EON Energy Tracker:(
Pat
|
Definitely the wind.
An Alka Seltzer should sort it out.
|
What wattage bulb do you have?
usually they come with a hundred watt bulb, but I found a 50 watt one for mine. It works just as well, and last longer and use less.
|
>> What wattage bulb do you have?
Pat said it was a big security light. Most of them take a 500w halogen bulb as standard.
|
500W, that's why I wince at the electricity it's using when it does this.
Pat
|
Put a 300 in. You won't notice any difference. We've got a 300w "energy saver" or somesuch in ours. I think it's made by GE, Uses fewer then 300w, 270 ish iirc, but gives the same light output.
John
|
500W, if it was on ALL night, because of the storms, would cost in the order of 60p. Chances are it's on for at most half of that in very windy weather, so you're down to perhaps 20 or 30p extra on a handful of nights throughout the year.
Fiver a year extra? Tenner at tops?
Last edited by: Crankcase on Fri 12 Nov 10 at 12:47
|
That's put my mind at rest crankcase, I think even I can manage the odd 60p here and there:)
Pat
|
Pat, we used to have this problem at our old house which was isolated, exposed and 1200 feet above sea level. Pitch black outside on a winter's night so we had such lights on all sides of the building. In the end we just used to turn them off on stormy nights and use torches. Theory being that the local burglar would be tucked up in his own bed in such weather anyway !
We had master switches in the house which made it easy to do as well as the outside ones.
|
|
Neighbours PIR lights always misbehave in high winds
|
|
When I used to keep rabbits in North London, they'd often escape and I'd leave it till night time to chase them through the neighbours' gardens. The security lights would be lighting up left, right and centre I'm surprised I never got arrested.
|
When my wife was a little girl she had a free range tortoise. It used to wander where it liked and was often found several gardens away. Eventually her dad drilled a little hole in the edge of its shell and attached some string to it. Thereafter it was easy to find it by just following the string. Apparently this system worked very well for it for many years and it was clearly intelligent enough not to strangle itself.
Not that this has much to do with security lights. I wonder if a tortoise would set them off? Suppose it might if you pulled the string hard enough. Be quite odd seeing a tortoise reversing at speed across your lawn in the dead of night under the glare of a security light wouldn't it?
Might make you go easy on the booze for a bit too...
|
|
I had two tortoises for many years. When the sun warmed them up, they were well rapid and they can climb too, that chain-mail fencing is no problem for a tortoise. There's nothing funnier than watching tortoises humping, it starts with a series of head butts from the male - he launches himself at the female then tucks his head in his shell so that it's his shell that is making contact. And he cries out while he's doing it, a really high pitched "Aaaahhh, aaaahhh". Like my x-wife.
|
..."Aaaahhh, aaaahhh". Like my x-wife....
Sure it wasn't: 'Ha-ha?'
|
|
Maybe he wasn't doing it right. I mean if you only had the two tortoises for years...Perhaps the high pitched cry was functional of some frustrating obstacle ? Or maybe the other tortoise wasn't actually female....Was it unfeasably tanned or inclined to dress up in cowboy outfits by any chance ?
|
>>I had two tortoises for many years. When the sun warmed them up, they were well rapid.
>>
>> There's nothing funnier than watching tortoises humping..- he launches himself at the female then tucks his head in his shell so that it's his shell that is making contact.
.
>>Or maybe the other tortoise wasn't actually female....
Well our tortoise is about 80 years old and I agree he can shift when warmed up.
There is one thing funnier than watching a tortoise doing whatt comes naturally and that is watching ours who has been on his own for all but an afternoon for the last 50 years.
He has not given up trying. He will launch himself at black plastic sacks that are full of garden clippings and sometime other things in the garden but black items seem most attractive.
Sometimes the soles of my trainers are a target.
Amazingly he is still growing at about two grams a yeear and has now reach a full kilo.
It is along term commitment to a tortoise:-)
|
I think you should make an old tortoise very happy and get him a female companion.
Pat
|
|
How much would he have to shell out for one of those then?
|
>> How much would he have to shell out for one of those then?
Just keep a lid on it Humph.
|
Swiftly changing the subject......:)
An update, the light now seems to be working normally and the wind has dropped to a normal Fen breeze!
I'll check it all evening though because right on cue my free EON Energy monitor thingy has arrived today.
I unwrapped it full of excitement and then saw just how technical it looked and decided to leave it to the 'anorak' to do tomorrow!
Pat
|
>>Be quite odd seeing a tortoise reversing at speed across your lawn
Has anyone else heard Max Boyce tell the tale of walking home after too much Guiness and missing the last bus?
That involves a tortoise.
|
>> Has anyone else heard Max Boyce tell the tale of walking home after too much
>> Guiness and missing the last bus?
>>
Not quite as funny as a certain Mr. Kevin Wilson (an Australian gentlemen) who did a song about being in a similar state and finding a cat.
Decency and the swear filter preclude me from stating the title.
|
Mr Wilson does a rather good one about a telephone operator too...
Maybe Stu should listen to it?
Pat
|
Security Light - AnotherJohnH
