LED Dimmers - Does this product exist?

[Cyberprog]

Hi All,

I'm in the midst of planning the re-wire of my new garage, and amongst this there will be some garden lighting that will need to be done.

What I'm hoping to do is to have a pair of PIR's on a switch circuit to control the LED lighting I'll be installing, but I'm trying to be fancy, and what I'd like to have would be a unit that when it gets the input from the PIR, it slowly fades up the lighting, and to do the same when the power is removed to slowly fade down the lighting to nothing. Rather than just suddenly snap the garden and steps into light when the PIR's activate.

Anyone know if such a product exists?

Cheers!

Alex.

 

[Marvo]

A couple of concerns spring to mind. Firstly make sure any PIR motion sensors are relay output and not Triac/Diac or any other solid state switch. Secondly if you want the lighting to fade in and fade out you'll need to use dimmable LED lamps.

As far as a fader itself goes I've never heard of one being sold separately. If it were me I'd either butcher one of those christmas tree lighting strings and steal the controller which has about 20 different functions you can toggle through. I'm sure one of the functions is some kind of fader. Otherwise I'd adapt an existing dimmer module and replace the potentiometer with a few discreet components to turn it into a fader. Either way you'd need to be handy with a soldering iron and electrically competent.

 

[Cyberprog]

A couple of concerns spring to mind. Firstly make sure any PIR motion sensors are relay output and not Triac/Diac or any other solid state switch. Secondly if you want the lighting to fade in and fade out you'll need to use dimmable LED lamps.

Yep, had considered that, I'm looking at units that should be capable of being used in a two-way setup.

As far as a fader itself goes I've never heard of one being sold separately. If it were me I'd either butcher one of those christmas tree lighting strings and steal the controller which has about 20 different functions you can toggle through. I'm sure one of the functions is some kind of fader. Otherwise I'd adapt an existing dimmer module and replace the potentiometer with a few discreet components to turn it into a fader. Either way you'd need to be handy with a soldering iron and electrically competent.

Yep, that's where my skills fall apart, I could get one made, or maybe make one myself, but I've not got the time or the energy to do so, and it'll be far simpler if a unit is already in existence