Roadhouse

This is his original post on a non electrical forum. Looking to find an answer for him:

I had two floodlights on the back of my house, both with motion sensors. They were old and ugly and my wife wants new ones, so I took them down.

While I was up there, I noticed the cable leading to the junction of the first light had two hot leads. A red and a black, and they're controlled by two separate switches. I'd assumed that each light had its own switch and I kind of regret just tearing all that **** off the back of my hosue without paying closer attention to the wiring.

Anyway I have two switches inside the house. One runs a black hot lead, the other a red hot lead both to the junction box that houses the first light. From the first light to the second light, there's a regular black/white cable, but it's just laying on top of the soffit, I could use it to fish a black/red/white cable throught there.

I want to know if it's possible to get a set of motion sensor floodlights, and wire them in a way so I can use one switch to turn them on permanent, like when we want to sit outside, and the other switch to arm the motion sensor.

I went to the store and couldn't find any floodlights that had two hot leads. I opened some of the boxes, adn some had a red wire going to the motion sensor, but it was connected to the black wire for the lamp, and there was no specific instruction on how to wire them separately.

MDShunk

Sure, it's done all the time. Tie the constant hot into the black wire to the motion sensor. Tie the switched hot into the red wire on the load side of the motion sensor, along with whatever all other wires were connected to that red wire, to keep them on all the time. They almost always have crimped on wire nuts, so you have to squeeze them 90 degrees opposite to the crimp to open them up, since the wires are generally too short to cut the crimp nut off.

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HARRY304E

You only need the two wire to the second fixture feed that with your red wire.

Just buy these sensor's they have a bypass feature http://www.prolighting.com/rabstst11...FQhN4AodkHEAUQ

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freeagnt54

You might want to check to make sure that they are both on the same phase

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Wireless

Some motion detectors have a built in bypass, like turn on and off fixture 2 or 3 times quickly.

Roadhouse

I appreciate the answers MDShunk, Harry, freeagnt54 and Wireless. As always, I knew I could count on you guys. I'll pass it on to the original poster.

Harry, your little dog Harry still puts grin on my face each and every time! Pumpkin has two new four legged roommates, a Yellow Lab and a Pomeranian. I'll post pics in a bit.

Thanks guys!

Hawkrod

Just out of curriosities sake, any chance that the two hots are for a three way switch setup? It does not say if teh two switches in teh house are together or apart and I have seen too many homeowner installs that did weird things like switch the neutral. I would check voltage accross black and red and from each to the neutral to make sure of what it is before I got too far into fixing it. I don't take anything like this for granted anymore.

retiredsparktech

With the one I had, you had to switch the power off, then on once, to get a continuous on function.
When I would get home, after work and the light was on, I knew the power was interrupted.

hardworkingstiff

My 1st thought was that the black controlled one set of lights and the red controlled a different set of lights (that 2nd set was the 2-wire cable coming into the 1st jb for flood lights).

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asomatous
Lou

Sparky J

Some of the sensors are made to have the red from it to control other lights down stream. So when the motion is tripped it turns its lights on and the down steam lights too.

Shockdoc

Or just a three wire system with multiple sensors controlling heads.

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hardworkingstiff

oops

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asomatous
Lou

wendon

Maybe was installed that way so if they wanted to they could switch the lights separately??

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Ive seen burnt up outlets, chard neutrals, and shorted wires.
Uncfesta

ampman

controlling two motion sensor lights from one switch will cause problems that is why two switches and two switch legs

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