Above is a schematic diagram of an LM741 light/dark sensor circuit (from the excellent 741 Op-Amp Tutorial by Tony van Roon).
The ECG128/NTE128 transistor stipulated can be substituted with any NPN transistor rated at sufficient gain and current for the chosen relay coil.
1st Nov 2007 Update - We have modified the schematic diagram above with the addition of a 220uF smoothing capacitor between the base of transistor Q1 and ground. Without this capacitor, the relay chatter (relay switching on and off many times per second) was terrible around the switch on/off light level. By adding the capacitor, relay chatter was completely eliminated.
According to the designer of this circuit, the relay will be closed only when "NO light falls on LDR1", however, in testing this circuit proved to work very well with the user able to adjust the potentiometer (P1) to automatically close the relay at whatever light level they chose.
By swapping the postitions of the 10K resistor (R1) and the LDR (LDR1), the relay will be closed when the LDR is under light rather than under darkness. Therefore a device can automatically be switched off at nighttime.
Since this circuit still contains a relay we need to make some changes* to reduce the amount of power to make it more suitable for renewable energy powered low-current applications.
The ECG128/NTE128 transistor stipulated can be substituted with any NPN transistor rated at sufficient gain and current for the chosen relay coil.
1st Nov 2007 Update - We have modified the schematic diagram above with the addition of a 220uF smoothing capacitor between the base of transistor Q1 and ground. Without this capacitor, the relay chatter (relay switching on and off many times per second) was terrible around the switch on/off light level. By adding the capacitor, relay chatter was completely eliminated.
According to the designer of this circuit, the relay will be closed only when "NO light falls on LDR1", however, in testing this circuit proved to work very well with the user able to adjust the potentiometer (P1) to automatically close the relay at whatever light level they chose.
By swapping the postitions of the 10K resistor (R1) and the LDR (LDR1), the relay will be closed when the LDR is under light rather than under darkness. Therefore a device can automatically be switched off at nighttime.
Since this circuit still contains a relay we need to make some changes* to reduce the amount of power to make it more suitable for renewable energy powered low-current applications.
