Automatic night lamp

Summary

Ever imagined how the street lights would turn on automatically in the evening and go off in the morning? Is there anyone who comes early morning to turn off these lights? The following circuit can perform this job properly. This circuit uses the output from a simple light/dark activated circuit and drives a relay in its output which can be further coupled to switch on/off an electrical appliance in a household.

An appliance can be made dark or light activated by slightly changing the circuit’s configuration.  This idea finds numerous applications such as, automatic watering of gardens at evening, automatic night lamp, dark activated siren and so on.

A light dependent resistor (LDR) is used in this circuit to provide input to a comparator of LM339 (refer Automatic lightdark indicator). The output pin of the comparator goes high depending on the configuration of LDR so that it can be made light or dark activated. This output is connected to a transistor T1 (BC 547) which acts as a switch for the relay.

The high output of the comparator provides the necessary forward bias to the base-emitter junction of the transistor T1. Thus T1 jumps from cut off to saturation state and collector current flows. This collector current energizes the relay coil. The magnetic field produced by the relay coil shifts its connection from NO state to NC. An appliance connected to NC contact gets switched on.

When the output of the comparator is low, it is insufficient to drive the transistor T1 to saturation. Hence T1 moves to cut off and the collector current ceases to flow. Thus the relay coil gets de-energized and it switches the state from NC to NO mode. It is important to note that resistor R2 (20k) is provided at the base of T1 to check the base current.

 

920-Reads	Resistor Resistor is a passive component used to control current in a circuit. Its resistance is given by the ratio of voltage applied across its terminals to the current passing through it. Thus a particular value of resistor, for fixed voltage, limits the current through it. They are omnipresent in electronic circuits. ...
1,118-Reads	LDR An LDR (Light dependent resistor), as its name suggests, offers resistance in response to the ambient light. The resistance decreases as the intensity of incident light increases, and vice versa. In the absence of light, LDR exhibits a resistance of the order of mega-ohms which decreases to few hundred ohms in the presence of light. It can act as a sensor, since a varying voltage drop can be obtaine...
3,032-Reads	Preset   A preset is a three legged electronic component which can be made to offer varying resistance in a circuit. The resistance is varied by adjusting the rotary control over it. The adjustment can be done by using a small screw driver o...
2,284-Reads	Transistor BC547 BC547 is an NPN bi-polar junction transistor. A transistor, stands for transfer of resistance, is commonly used to amplify current. A small current at its base controls a larger current at collector & emitter terminals. ...
960-Reads	Relay Relay is an electromagnetic device which is used to isolate two circuits electrically and connect them magnetically. They are very useful devices and allow one circuit to switch another one while they are completely separate. They are often used to interface an electronic circuit (working at a low voltage) to an electrical circuit which works at very high v...
905-Reads	LM339 IC LM339 is a comparator IC with four inbuilt comparators. A comparator is a simple circuit that moves signals between the analog and digital worlds. It compares two input voltage levels and gives digital output to indicate the larger one. The two input pins are termed as inverting (V-) and non-inverting (V+). The output pin goes high when voltage at V+ is greater than that at V-, and vice versa. In com...