Photocontrols for Automating Outdoor Lighting

Outdoor lighting in residential areas helps increase the appeal and security of parks, shopping areas, parking lots, and common spaces such as public walkways, residential streets, and around apartment buildings. At manufacturing facilities and warehouses, outdoor area lighting helps to prevent accidents by improving the visibility of people, equipment, environmental and objects. 

Today's outdoor lighting systems are increasingly designed for connected solutions with smart cities in mind.These systems typically involve integrating with advanced controls, including dimming functionality, LED lights and dimming controls. To define these technological advancements, engineers have updated standards to align with the future state of automated lighting. TE’s portfolio contains a range of low-cost, simple on/off photocells. However, as cities and municipalities face  continued pressure to reduce energy budgets, the ALR range now includes dimming products. Part-night photocells that turn the lights off completely for a duration of the dark period introduce legislative, safety and security issues. With dimming photocells, you do not need to compromise. They reduce the amount of energy usage without the drawbacks of turning the lights off completely.

Informed by our 50 years experience designing robust controls for lighting systems in communities around the world, we have developed the LUMAWISE ALR photocontrols to automate luminaire operation for a wide variety of on/off applications, along with dimming options. Our ALR series street lighting photocells are ANSI C136.10 or Zhaga Book 18 compliant photocontrols.

Zhaga-D4i-certified ALR digital photocells from TE Connectivity help ensure nighttime safety and lower power consumption and therefore reduce CO₂ emissions in sustainable and environmentally friendly streetlights. Like any photocell, TE's new photocell controls the switching on and off of street lighting, and also can dim the light source during preset periods of darkness. This intelligent and sustainable operation of streetlighting helps to increase nighttime safety, while reducing energy consumption and utility costs in public spaces.

Both TE's 7000 series and 8000 series controls feature a universal, three-pole, locking connection compatible with all ANSI/NEMA C136.10 receptacles. Using a rotatable receptacle allows the photocell aperture to be uniformly oriented, typically facing north, so light fixtures are powered just before sunset and turned off after sunrise. The interlocking base/cap design, common to both controls, is manufactured from UV stabilized materials rated for high temperatures. These products are constructed to endure the harsh environments required by road lighting, protecting electric components from dust, rain, ice, and snow. These utilize an IR filtered sensor, responding to light changes with sensitivity that mimics the human eye. In addition, this filtering provides consistent light sensing, (significantly) reducing sensor drift for the life of the control. Voltage ratings from 105 – 305 VAC at 50/60 Hz allow this control to be applied to a wide range of applications. Explore ANSI street lighting photocells.