Timer

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ceb58

ceb58

Senior Member
Location
Raeford, NC
I need help deciding on an install. Here is the situation. I am doing a fellowship hall for a church. At rough in I knew they were planing on installing a 120v LED back lit cross on the end of the building. I roughed in a wp box on the out side for a photo cell to control the cross and took the switch leg,2 wire/g, into the unfinished storage area above. Now at the last of the trim out they now want it on a timer also. They are adamant they do not want the timer out side next to the wp box with the photo cell. What I am thinking about is picking up power from the recp. at the air handlers set a box with a switch (as a disconnect) to feed the clock motor only. Then set another box with a switch (disco) for the leg coming from the photo cell and send it to one side of the contacts in the timer with the other leg going to the cross. That way I can set the timer to come on at say 4:00pm but the photo cell will hold it off until dark and then turn it off at around 10:00pm. Any problems with the two power sources in the timer?
 
Jim W in Tampa

Jim W in Tampa

Senior Member
Location
Tampa Florida
Your making an easy job hard. They make timers that fit into that bell box. If that is not in easy reach then tap in where you can and run 3 wire to where ever they want the timer.
Is no way i would use 2 circuits thats just asking for a mess.
 
ceb58

ceb58

Senior Member
Location
Raeford, NC
Jim W in Tampa said:
Your making an easy job hard. They make timers that fit into that bell box. If that is not in easy reach then tap in where you can and run 3 wire to where ever they want the timer.
Is no way i would use 2 circuits thats just asking for a mess.
Click to expand...

There we go. I had forgot about those timers. I have a j box inside that I brought the home run into and then went out side to the wp box. I can put the timer in that box and control the photo cell. Cutting rock and trying to fish mc ap could be done but........
 
kwired

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
My question is what is the point of the timer unless they want the thing to shut off at say midnight. LED lights not going to cost a lot to run all night long either.

I put occupancy sensors in the restrooms at a church for the lighting because they did not want lights to be accidently left on possibly for several days at times. I set the time delay to turn off the lights for 15 minutes thinking that would be safe time to prevent someone from sitting in the dark in a stall. At a later date one of the council members asked if I could set them for 5 minutes because it is taking too long for them to turn off. I could not seem to get him to understand that it is not using that much energy during the extra 10 minutes, and if someone is in a stall for more than five minutes they will likely be in the dark, and if they are waiting around after church or meeting to see if the lights are going to turn off why did they have the automatic switch installed - they could have just turned them off and then left immediately instead of waiting.

Sorry for getting off topic a little bit, but churches I have found sometimes have too many bosses and they all have different ideas.

They also sometimes have too many volunteers with tool belts that can do anything.
 
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Jim W in Tampa

Jim W in Tampa

Senior Member
Location
Tampa Florida
I have 1 sitting on my desk waiting on an electrician to install. My dog needs a small light so he can go out at night. Easier to stick it in a box than install photo cell. Its GE 15086 was about $20 at big orange. If i was getting paid it would be installed.
 
ceb58

ceb58

Senior Member
Location
Raeford, NC
kwiredMy question is what is the point of the timer unless they want the thing to shut off at say midnight.
As in the Op shut it off at 10:00pm. The guy that made the cross had a good point about leaving it on all night. It just gives vandals a lit target to throw things at.
 
kwired

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
ceb58 said:
kwiredMy question is what is the point of the timer unless they want the thing to shut off at say midnight.
As in the Op shut it off at 10:00pm. The guy that made the cross had a good point about leaving it on all night. It just gives vandals a lit target to throw things at.
Click to expand...

Sorry I re-read OP and see you did say you wanted to turn off before photocell would turn it off.
 
J

jap

Senior Member
Occupation
Electrician
Why not just forget the Photocell, Splice the wires together in the wp j-box, Blank it off , install the timer in the Storage area and run the switchlegs to the cross?
If your going to throw power to the photcell at 4:00 and the photocell wont energize until dark, the photocell is useless anyway if you want to shut it off at 10:00 by the timer.

The only thing you would gain with a photocell is if you wanted it to come on if it became dark from a rainstorm coming in or something.
 
Jim W in Tampa

Jim W in Tampa

Senior Member
Location
Tampa Florida
jap said:
Why not just forget the Photocell, Splice the wires together in the wp j-box, Blank it off , install the timer in the Storage area and run the switchlegs to the cross?
If your going to throw power to the photcell at 4:00 and the photocell wont energize until dark, the photocell is useless anyway if you want to shut it off at 10:00 by the timer.

The only thing you would gain with a photocell is if you wanted it to come on if it became dark from a rainstorm coming in or something.
Click to expand...

And that is why most install both. Buisness is slow for everyone so got to advertise LOL
 
tkb

tkb

Senior Member
Location
MA
Eliminate the photocell and put in an astronomical time clock and then you have full control from the inside without the photocell.
 
Smart $

Smart $

Esteemed Member
Location
Ohio
tkb said:
Eliminate the photocell and put in an astronomical time clock and then you have full control from the inside without the photocell.
Click to expand...
As in the example I linked in Post #6??? ;)

I referred to the astronomical timing as the sunrise/sunset feature in my post.
 
H

hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
kwired said:
My question is what is the point of the timer unless they want the thing to shut off at say midnight. LED lights not going to cost a lot to run all night long either.

I put occupancy sensors in the restrooms at a church for the lighting because they did not want lights to be accidently left on possibly for several days at times. I set the time delay to turn off the lights for 15 minutes thinking that would be safe time to prevent someone from sitting in the dark in a stall. At a later date one of the council members asked if I could set them for 5 minutes because it is taking too long for them to turn off. I could not seem to get him to understand that it is not using that much energy during the extra 10 minutes, and if someone is in a stall for more than five minutes they will likely be in the dark, and if they are waiting around after church or meeting to see if the lights are going to turn off why did they have the automatic switch installed - they could have just turned them off and then left immediately instead of waiting.

Sorry for getting off topic a little bit, but churches I have found sometimes have too many bosses and they all have different ideas.

They also sometimes have too many volunteers with tool belts that can do anything.
Click to expand...

When I did our church, I installed contactors on all of the lighting circuits, controlled by a pushbutton switch near the front door, when pushed once, all of the lights that were turned on by their respective local switches, such as classrooms, offices, sanctuary, restrooms ect. would come on. When the switch was pushed again, the lights that were left on turn off for about 2 seconds, then come back on, letting anybody left in the building know that the lights will go off in 5 minutes. We call it the R. Neal switch, named for the deacon that I put out of a job turning off all the lights people left on!
 
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