CONTACTOR/PHOTOCELL HELP!

[hyper35]

Hi there only joined today so here goes..
i wonder if any one can help i have to wire in 8 bollard lights and they want them to come on and go off using a photocell now they have said i need to fit a contactor which i have but i am not sure how to go about incorporting the photocell .
What i have is a perm live feed and perm live for photocell then i have the feed to bollard lights and the feed to photocell and of couse all the neutrals.
The contactor is a mem AA202 and has A1 & A2 THEN 1 2 3 4 please if anyone could help and tell me what goes where and would be gratful.....

 

[Spark123]

You'd probably use the photocell to drive the contactor coil, then run the lights from a switched supply via the contacts.
Just wondering what sort of current the bollards take ?
You might not even need to use a contactor if the photocell is rated high enough.

 

[hyper35]

Hi there only joined today so here goes..
i wonder if any one can help i have to wire in 8 bollard lights and they want them to come on and go off using a photocell now they have said i need to fit a contactor which i have but i am not sure how to go about incorporting the photocell .
What i have is a perm live feed and perm live for photocell then i have the feed to bollard lights and the feed to photocell and of couse all the neutrals.
The contactor is a mem AA202 and has A1 & A2 THEN 1 2 3 4 please if anyone could help and tell me what goes where and would be gratful.....

Hi thanks for getting back the bollards take a supply of 230v and each light has a 70watt soduim discharge bulb.
If i dont have to use a contactor that would be cool !

 

[RF Lighting]

You need the contactor to deal with the inrush current from all those inductive loads.

Are the supplies for the photocell and the lights from different final circuits?

 

[Spark123]

What make & model of photocell?
It is sounding like you may be a bit over the top for a single photocell to switch on its own - was thinking you had something which took an energy saving type CFL lamp!

 

[hyper35]

You need the contactor to deal with the inrush current from all those inductive loads.

Are the supplies for the photocell and the lights from different final circuits?

The perm feed is coming from a 6amp breaker and the photocell is also 6amp and then there is the feed for the lights.
does the perm feed for the photocell need to operate the contactor or can the feed from the photocell be sufficiate enough to energize the coil and then switch the lights?

 

[Spark123]

The switch live from the photocell supplies the phase to the contactor.
You might also have problems using that amount of sodium lights on a single 6A MCB.

 

[ElectricDunc]

6A type C breaker should hold without a problem. Do you know how to connect the contactor up so that the photocell is operating the coil?

 

[kevin1234]

6A type C breaker should hold without a problem. Do you know how to connect the contactor up so that the photocell is operating the coil?

how would you do this then? have you got a drawing?

 

[ricicle]

6A type C breaker should hold without a problem. Do you know how to connect the contactor up so that the photocell is operating the coil?

how would you do this then? have you got a drawing?

Common sense to anyone who understands electrical circuits I would have thought ?

 

[Spark123]

Looking in the manufacturers info for selection of MCBs (Square D), it recommends a C type 10A mcb for 8 x 70w HPS lamps.

 

[sjwkmje]

This is how I would wire it:

Fused Spur as a control feed with a perm live fed to the photocell and a neutral. Reason for a Fused Spur is you can fit a 1A fuse and this will give far better protection in a fault situation than a common 6A MCB (Yes for the others out here I know you can get 1A, 2A, 3A MCBs but these are uncommon and for a domestic spark a Spur is easier to get hold of)

You then a switched live from the photocell. Feed this to the coil on the contactor. The other side of the coil goes to neutral. Now when the photocell comes on the contactor will energise and pull in a set of contacts.

Now if you have two sets of contacts you can use these as double pole connect neutral and live from the lighting supply then the output to the loads.

If you need a circuit then I could draw one up but its basic stuff just using a contactor to supply a load.

I would if I was doing this use a DIN rail enclosure and do everything neatly in there. You can use DIN rail terminals and DIN rail fuse holders for the control. Makes a much neater job IMHO.

Adam

 

[bhm1712]

if your asking this amount of questions with such a simple circuit then you should not be working on 230v!!!

 

[bhm1712]

as stated previosuly, a 10A breaker would be the best choice out of ease to get one, but a 8 amp would be better if you can find one.

a total of 560 watts in the circuit will give a nominal current of 2.4A with a typical inrush current of between 6-7 A depending what manufacturer made the sodium lamps (as a rule of thumb a 70 watt sodium will have an inrush of about 0.80 amp) so that would work out to 6.4 amps total for 8 lamps.

the contactor would also have to be correctly rated.

i would also use a fused spur with a correctly rated fuse for the contactor coil, for the feed to the photocell, and the lamps fed from the 10A breaker in the fuse board/consumer unit.

A1 and A2 on the contactor will be the coil.

1,2,3,4 will be the contact terminals

are these light to be outside? or inside?

what cable are you planning to use?

 

[hyper35]

6A type C breaker should hold without a problem. Do you know how to connect the contactor up so that the photocell is operating the coil?

Not 100% any advice would help what the set up is it used to run 8 outside walkover lights then when they changed them into bollard lights they took the contactor out and cut back all the wiring so now 1 year on i have to reconnect back up with contactor included , so i have the perm live from the board and perm live for the photocell going out then coming in have the feed for bollard lights and the feed for photocell all run in swa 1.5, does the photocell need 2 feeds coming out as it has live , load and neutral i hope that helps.......thanks