Hi folks, Pretty much all my clocks have some form of passive IR control to avoid burning tubes when no one is looking... In many cases the PIR control is accomplished with modifications to the controller board, but some of the clocks are more of a pain to modify than others. In particular, on one of my small VFD clocks it's difficult to modify the base board to remove filament voltage and I'm tired of replacing failed VFD tubes on this unit.
I just came across low cost PIR power switches used to control the DC supplied to LED strips and similar lights. The switch I used is rated for 5 - 24 VDC at 5 amps. It's available with fast delivery time from Amazon and for a lot lower cost on ebay, but with very long delivery time. Here's the Amazon part for the impatient among us: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LEEWBN4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I'm using the PIR switch in three configurations at the moment... - An unmodified PIR switch in series with the 5V wall wart powering an old USB hub. I added a jumper internal to the hub to supply power to the USB ports with no computer connection. I also wired the red hub LED to light when power is applied. The stock coaxial connectors matched the hub connectors. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-99zEWXazGDw/WcVBO-9QajI/AAAAAAAAAUk/WHBWhZW7yW00NdGgYpNsghTLQEAUictDACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20170922_091518601.jpg> - An unmodified PIR switch in series with the 12V wall wart powering a clock. As with the USB hub above, the stock coaxial connectors happened to be the proper size. - I modified the wired connections to a PIR switch so that it's in series with power lines on a USB extension cable. The data lines are disconnected and the extension cable powers a clock running off a plug-in 5V USB power cube. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hHhRP3WozIk/WcVBb4fseBI/AAAAAAAAAUo/F0PAjZhA_ycBMEQDC8seukOviEXsCeSHwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20170922_091405718.jpg> Note that I also modified the PR module by changing a cap to extend the power-on time when motion is detected. Stock time is adjustable from a few seconds up to about 6 minutes. As modified, the on-time ranges from 2 to 39 minutes. Change the circled cap to a 0.1 uF/0603 part for the longer on-time. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6_tJ9AW219A/WcVBCVBpW1I/AAAAAAAAAUg/9rdFF27VJpkB7HhYIgrmrArWRk2B1vBOgCLcBGAs/s1600/CapChange.JPG> Enjoy... Bob -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/e8bd9d11-05cb-4f80-a44e-b5f750b729e2%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
