Has anyone tried to interface an arduino with one of these sensors?
It is a replacement sensor for home security lights. It is capable of sensing motion 70 feet away (21 meters).
Here's all I know:
-the lighting system runs on 120 v ac but I'm not sure if that much power goes into the sensor, maybe just the lights.
-There are three wires: Black(power) White(Ground) and Red(for turning the lights on)
If I hook the Black to 5v and White to ground, and Red to Analog 1, all I get is a number in the 1020's that jumps around.
It is sold here:
http://www.lowes.com/pd_247582-85538-SH-5316-BZ_4294857027+4294882837+5003700+5003720_42949370
but there is no information there except for a picture.
I too think it is designed for 120vac operation. Most likely the white (neutral) and black (hot) are the 120v power input and the remaining orange lead is the hot switched 120vac when motion is detected. To interface this with an arduino would take a 120vac relay coil wired to the orange and white leads and the relay's contacts wired to the Arduino just like any switch would be wired with proper pull-up or down.
Certainly easy to test out by wiring 120v power to the white/black and measure the orange to the white, and see if it switches voltage on and off as motion is detected and then timed out.
Lefty
And just as easy to blow it up if it wasn't designed for 120V
Well the link the OP posted has a specification tab which opens and states it is for 120vac. I would not posted what I did if I didn't really believe it to be so, 120vac is not something to play with. However without having it in my possession I could only state 'I think'.
Lefty
UPDATE: It's halfway working.
The motion detector is working, every time it senses motion a red led on top lights up. However, the Red wire is supposed to send out power, but it never does.
I've connected the sensor to an opened extension cord.
The sensor's white wire is connected to the two ground extension cord wires (white and green)
The sensor's black wire is connected to the black hot extension cord wire.
I connected a multimeter to the Red wire and the White wires. Nothing. It never changes.
When I connect it to the black hot wire and the white it gives the right reading, constant 120v.
Maybe it's broken, unless someone sees something I'm missing. I bought it brand new though.
If worse comes to worse I'll have to stick a light sensor against that small red led and work off that.
Success.
Once I connected the red and white to a light it started working. I guess it needed some kind of load on it to work.