Posted: 1/10/2013 8:01:47 PM EDT
| Does anyone know what I should be looking for with motion lights? I live at the end of a culdesac, and the only thing behind me is woods and then a huge open field (500+ acres) that isnt managed. The backside of my property is pretty dark. I want to put floodlights I guess. Maybe 180-270º. I'd like to keep it affordable. |
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Have you considered using a photo cell activated light vs motion? Comes on at dusk and off at dawn. Yes, it uses more power but the place it lit up constantly.
My viewpoint is I'd rather someone cruising the neighborhood, that's up to no good, bypass my house from the start b/c of the lights and go to the dark one down the road. Motions will turn on after they have chosen your house and are out of the car taking an even closer look. |
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I have tried several brands at both the houses i have owned and replaced then at my parents. I bought really cheap ones when i bought my first house and really expensive "top of the line" after that. Personally i have find that the brand didn't matter nearly as much as the placement. All of them have very specific angles up and down as well as left and right they work best in.
The higher up ones don't work Hardly at all because you almost have to point them straight down. Seems to me ,YMMV, they are best just slightly over 1 story high. Just high enough to be out of reach but where the "eye" is almost parallel to the ground. As far as 180 vs 270 and such that really just depends on what's being the light. If you are on A flat wall get a 180, corner of the house, get the 270. If the lights are 3 stories up consider using condiut to lower them closer to where the eye is parallel. Also makes then much easier to change..... HTH |
| Oh yea one other thing. If you can get the lights that can be daisy chained together. They work where if one light goes of it triggers the rest of them to go off. You have to run a 3 wire do there is a load wire (the extra red wire). Personally i think the extra with is worth it. Especially if you lights are weird through the attic where replacing the wire isn't to difficult. |
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I installed some lights in my old house and they had some good features to look for. It had a photocell that came on at dusk and went off at dawn. They also came on with about half the intensity and went to full intensity only when the motion sensor was activated.
I don't remember the brand but look for a light with these features. |
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I know this may be anathema to some, but I just use the 100W equivalent CFL lights. I have one by each door, which means that there's also one on each wall of the house. I leave them on all night, but being CFL's, they only use 14 watts each. One day I'll change out all the fixtures to dusk-to-dawn, but part of my nightly routine is to make the rounds and make sure each door is locked, so I just make sure the lights are all on at the same time.
I do have the big three-bulb floodlights set up on each corner of the house as well, but I only turn them on if I want to really light up the outside. They're filled with 100W PAR flood lights, which probably make the electric meter spin like Dorothy in the Kansas tornado when they're all on. |
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Quoted:
Have you considered using a photo cell activated light vs motion? Comes on at dusk and off at dawn. Yes, it uses more power but the place it lit up constantly. My viewpoint is I'd rather someone cruising the neighborhood, that's up to no good, bypass my house from the start b/c of the lights and go to the dark one down the road. Motions will turn on after they have chosen your house and are out of the car taking an even closer look. For what you're looking to do I agree with this. Why wait until they're already on your property to give off the light. I'm looking to install one in my back soon, and pretty much decided I'm going to go with a metal halide bulb. The 100W metal halide will give off the same light as a 500W incandescent so it's much more efficient and the lifespan is about 15x longer (will last approx. 15,000 hrs, or about 3 1/2 years if on all night, every night). So you'll get more light, more throw and a more efficient bulb. Just a note, if you do go with metal halide you won't be able to go on motion anyways. They have a 'warm up' period of a couple minutes to reach full light output, so these wouldn't be suited for motion activation. |
| When you buy your floods, get the brightest LED bulbs you can. We keep our floods on all night, every night, and some days when we forget. Incandescent lights don't stand a chance. Even CFL's die quickly. These LED bulbs we bought were probably $35 or more each, but they are great. They throw a good, long beam, have wide coverage, and are at least as bright as anything else. They have lasted as long as any others so far, but we've had them about a year maybe. |
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I went with a two layer approach
I have cheap photocell floodlights with low wattage led bulbs around my entire house. It basically looks like a full moon around my property at night In addition I have motion activated halogen floodlights if someone gets closer to the house |
| I have tried solar lights before with poor results. However, I recently bought two solar powered LED floodlight with motion detectors from Northern Tool for about $40 each and they are working very well. I also use the CFLs in all my lights outside my exterior doors with a photovoltaic switch I got from lowes. |
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I have tried solar lights before with poor results. However, I recently bought two solar powered LED floodlight with motion detectors from Northern Tool for about $40 each and they are working very well. I also use the CFLs in all my lights outside my exterior doors with a photovoltaic switch I got from lowes. Link? |
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Home Depot and Lowes has some decent LED lights now. I put it two sets about a year ago. They have 270 degree motion detection. they only draw 30 watts and have better lighiting coverage than 180 watts incadescent.
I have been very happy with them except there is some condition that causes one of the sets to hang at night and stay on all night after being tripped instead of going off after 15 minutes. The best thing about these is if a noise wakes my up at night I can know if any warm blodded creatures came into the field of the lights. There are actually lights out now that will track the motion of "animals" moving in their detection field and point the light at the animal. Now if I can just get laser coaxed with the light. Then I would have an effective deterrant to anyone coming on the property. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
I have tried solar lights before with poor results. However, I recently bought two solar powered LED floodlight with motion detectors from Northern Tool for about $40 each and they are working very well. I also use the CFLs in all my lights outside my exterior doors with a photovoltaic switch I got from lowes. Link? Bought them off the shelf in the Marietta store. |