I have a garden shed at the far corner of our lot. It has a window, and the door has a window, but it can be hard to see in there.
For a while I had a dollar-store battery operated motion light that worked quite well, but it uses D or C cells, I forget which but they’re not as cheap and plentiful as, say, AAs, and it’s not exactly convenient to have to change the batteries regularly.
I didn’t want to run power to it just to have some light. I might do that one day if I get the budget to upgrade to a battery lawnmower, but for now I wanted an easier and more convenient solution.
So I bought this solar powered motion light.
I mounted the panel outside, and the light inside. And… it didn’t work… aargh! Well, it works at night, but during the day it stays off as long as the solar panel has light. The light came with a remote for different settings, but there is no setting that always allows it to come on in the daytime.
So I had resigned to installing a rechargeable motion light in there that I had in the garage, that does come on day or night… but… when I disconnected the solar panel plug from the light, the light came on… literally and figuratively… the shed lit up, and I got an idea: The motion light comes on when the solar panel is disconnected, so I could add a switch by the door to turn the light on and off.
The light came with enough wire to allow me to cut the wire and add a switch in there. I could just add a manual switch by the door.
But then I realized… I had some magnetic switches left over from another project that would work perfectly here - the magnet is at the top of the door, with the switch on the door frame. This saves me from forgetting to turn the light off to allow it to charge up again.
Now the light automatically comes on when I open the door - it disconnects the panel and the motion of the door sets off the sensor!
And as a bonus - it automatically turns off when I close the door as I leave! Except at night haha, that made me do a double take the first time I did that!
The wiring is a bit rough, done just for testing. I was going to clean that up and then thought.. it’s a garden shed, it doesn’t have to be fancy haha. Save the effort. Done!
