motion light cycling on and off.....why?

[mldollins]

I put a motion light on my garage to scare off bad guys. Here is what I did. I hooked up the light and it worked properly. I also wired in a second set of lights within the first motion light so when the one set kicks on, the other will also on another side of the garage. However, lately its been quirky.

When I turn on a low wattage light inside the garage, for some reason it begins cycling on and off every 15 seconds. Sometimes for no apparent reason it begins cycling. There is no reflection of light on the sensor. There is not too much wattage on the detector.

Can motion detectors be this finicky and go bad quickly?

thanks

[Old Vet]

Originally Posted by mldollins

I put a motion light on my garage to scare off bad guys. Here is what I did. I hooked up the light and it worked properly. I also wired in a second set of lights within the first motion light so when the one set kicks on, the other will also on another side of the garage. However, lately its been quirky.

When I turn on a low wattage light inside the garage, for some reason it begins cycling on and off every 15 seconds. Sometimes for no apparent reason it begins cycling. There is no reflection of light on the sensor. There is not too much wattage on the detector.

Can motion detectors be this finicky and go bad quickly?

thanks

Motion senors can sometimes detect things you can't see like wind or bugs
if outdoors set your sensitivity to a lower setting so it doesn't catch every movement.

[DavisHillFarm]

Originally Posted by mldollins

When I turn on a low wattage light inside the garage, for some reason it begins cycling on and off every 15 seconds.
thanks

Last summer I placed a motion light on our barn. Worked great. BUT, when fall came around I pulled my small chicken tractor, which has a metal roof on it, near the motion light. We had gotten chicks, so I had a heat lamp in the coop...well using that heat lamp made the motion light go bananas!

The bottom line...I think yours is picking up or sensing heat from the light inside the garage....like mine did from the coop. They're tricky and touchy buggars!

[RosewoodfarmVA]

Maybe you've got a boogie man sneaking around


You can adjust the sensitivity on the light by the little switches on the unit itself. There are usually 2 switches, one for how long the unit stays lit after motion, and one for motion sensitivity. I have ours turned up high so that when I'm outside working at night it will pick me up from a long ways so I don't fumble around in the dark. This also means that on windy nights etc I have to turn off the light switch for the unit as it is on-off-on-off all night long due to windy tree limbs etc.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Geckos. Our geckos learned they could attract bugs by turning on the motion light at night. Instant buffet table.

[RosewoodfarmVA]

Originally Posted by Alice In TX/MO

Geckos. Our geckos learned they could attract bugs by turning on the motion light at night. Instant buffet table.

Our cat does that with the porch light. She sits there at night and catches any bugs or critters big enough in her opinion to eat!

Several years ago my parents had a frog that showed up at their window to eat bugs. Every night they always sit in the same room reading and such and the frog learned that he could sit on the window and get a buffet. He would always show up a few minutes after dark when they turned on the light in that room and all the skitters and bugs would land on the window and that frog would get them! It was so neat to watch.

[navygirl]

Saw a little bird picking bugs off the grills of all the cars in the parking lot this weekend. Same concept... was rather cute watching him hop up and grab a bug, then gulp, then hop up for another.

[Shrek]

If you have a secondary fixture connected to the motion sensor, you may be loading the sensor triggering with the second light by adding even a low wattage load, confusing the unit in reading threshold levels of the varistor that activates the current flow of the primary fixture.

[mldollins]

works fine now.

thanks

[ronbre]

wind, rabbits, cars going by, birds flying by, bats..??