Hey everyone,

As the title states, I'm building an outdoor path light. It will run off mains 120V, and will be driven with the following outdoor waterproof LED driver. The driver will be powering a strip or two of a waterproof 5050 LED Strip. (Please note that if anyone has a source for better-quality components at a reasonable price, I'd greatly appreciate hearing about it.)

The only thing missing from my design is a photocell to act as a daylight sensor. However, I don't want the light to come on at night, and stay on all the way through to dusk. I want it to come on and then stay on for 4, 6, 8 hours, or whatever its set to, before turning off. Its this part that I don't know how to do.

My one idea is that i could just deconstruct and salvage a relatively cheap low-voltage lighting transformer and make use of its photocell timing circuit, which i know does exactly what I'm describing... but I'm wondering if there's a solution that exists already on the market that i could incorporate.

Thanks for your help in advance!
-Ty

 

The easiest is probably just buy that Home Depot timer and use its output to operate a 12Vac relay that controls the mains 120V to the LED driver.
No deconstruction of the device necessary.