There is a whole world of potential applications for a sensor to be utilized in. Being part of a company that specializes in these little jewels, both bare switches and proximity sensors, we are continually contacted by people trying to figure out how to incorporate them in their designs and looking for sensor solutions. From industrial control recognition, all the way down to good ole cousin Billy just wanting to know how he can have a light come on at night to tell him when he has a hog in the trap, there are many different ways to utilize these switches and sensors.
It is our hope to ignite the spark of ingenuity in a person’s mind to make them understand how the most common everyday tasks can be made better with a switch or sensing device.
Cabinet doors
You can do many things with just a simple proximity sensor that is operated with a magnet. Let’s look at something that we do many times a day without giving it much thought at all; opening a cabinet door. The first thing that comes to mind for me, as I get a little older and my vision declines is how dark it is in some of those cabinets. A person can attach an actuator, a housing with a magnet in it, to the cabinet door and then mount the sensor to the frame just inside the cabinet. This will automatically turn on a light when the door is opened, and turn the light off when the door is closed.
Most of our sensors will handle simple battery power alone, so you don’t even have to pay the big cost of a licensed electrician to come to your home and wire from your breaker box to the light. You just go to the store and pick up a cheap battery powered light and wire it up. If you do want to have the light powered by standard AC electricity, or already have a light mounted that is, we have that covered with a sensor that can switch common household 110 volt AC electricity without the need of a costly relay. Thinking out of the box, both these installations could also have a buzzer, or some other type of alarm, along with the light that would let you know if someone is someplace that they shouldn’t be.
Closets
One of my friends had an older home that didn’t even have wall mounted switches in his closets, just the old pull string type. He went through and removed the pull string switch out of the lamp base and then wired over to the door and installed our AC switching sensors on the door frame and mounted the magnet actuator to the door. Like magic, open the door the light comes on, and close the door and the light goes off. This means no more griping at the kids to turn the light off in the closet before they close the door. It was a very simple solution that gained him the temporary position of a genius in the eyes of his wife and kids.
