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Can anyone recommend landscape lighting that can be controlled with the OpenSprinkler without the use of a relay board i.e lights that work with 24-28vac.
I did some quick search and it seems many low-voltage landscape lights are rated 12V (either AC or DC). I believe these can work with 24V AC if you connect two such bulbs in series. Alternatively you can connect a diode (such as 1N4007) in series to block half of the AC waves, thus effectively reducing the average voltage to 12V. Another alternative is to find 12V LED lights — because LED lights are inherently diodes, they should be able to work directly with 24V AC (I would recommend adding a power resistor in series for some added protection).
I just got my OSPi and am re-doing my yard over the next few weeks. I’m toying with the idea of running some landscape lighting off the OSPi. Did you have any luck with this project?
OK, since many users asked about this, I went ahead and did some test myself:
– 12V LED light: works fine, can be directly plugged into OSPi as a normal sprinkler zone (doesn’t even matter polarity because OSPi runs on AC voltage). Note that because the peak voltage of 24V AC is quite high, in practice I suggest connecting two 12V LED lights in series to halve the voltage on each.The downside with LED light is that because it’s internally a diode, it only lights up on the positive cycles of the AC voltage, so it flickrs at 30Hz, which is noticable. You should try it out and see if this may be a concern.
– 24V light bulb: works fine, can be directly plugged into OSPi as a normal sprinkler zone.
– 12V light bulb: should not be directly plugged in, but if you put two of these in series then it should be fine.
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