Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

Posted on
Sun Apr 05, 2020 11:52 am
howartp offline
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Joined: Jan 09, 2014
Location: West Yorkshire, UK

Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

Spent the day hardwiring some of my Fibaro (eyeball) motion sensors.

They take 3.3v CR123 batteries so initially I bought a variable 3/4.5/6/9/12v DC transformer off eBay for £7.50, cut the plug off, drilled the Fibaro and wired it.

That worked a treat and I wanted to do more.

I realised standard ATX PC power supplies have a few 3.3v outputs (the orange wires) so went digging in my cupboard for spare working PSUs. I’ve plenty at work but none here (other than in old PCs), but I came across three 3v plugs in my cupboard! Result!

The next one I did also worked great.

The third I tried wouldn’t work; I then realised it was 3v 200ma which isn’t enough, but I was getting more daring now so tried a 5v plug I had to hand - and it worked!

So I’ve now got three Fibaro motion sensors hard wired. Turned sensitivity up to 8 (the highest (lowest) setting, and Off-interval down to 5 seconds as battery life isn’t an issue.

What a difference it makes in accurate motion tracking! Our kitchen and toilet lights no longer turn off whilst you’re in the room, even in the short time I’ve been testing today, because Indigo gets an incoming command every 5-10 seconds.

I think mine at 3v 10amp, 3v 500ma and 5v 2amp

3v 200ma doesn’t work.

I’ll tidy/rewire them next time we decorate but each one is ok for where they are. They have MAF (mother approval factor) particularly as the lights don’t go out!




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Posted on
Sun Apr 05, 2020 11:52 am
howartp offline
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Joined: Jan 09, 2014
Location: West Yorkshire, UK

Re: Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

Pics to follow; Tapatalk isn’t shrinking them!


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Posted on
Mon Apr 06, 2020 12:02 am
mundmc offline
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Re: Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

I approve of this methodology :)

My hard-wired Aeotec multisensors get to be way snappier when hard-wired.

Posted on
Mon Apr 06, 2020 9:00 am
siclark offline
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Joined: Jun 13, 2017
Location: UK

Re: Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

Whilst I whole heartedly approve of your tinkering... for lights in toilets, there is a much easier way that :shock: doesnt involve indigo for simple scnearios like lighgts in a toilet.

I have just wired these in to the lighting main in the ceiling going to the lights, they are very unobtrusive and will always work. Well, if someone has turned the light switch off they wont, but then I dont need the lights to come on if no one is in there, and if someone walks in and the lights dont come on, they just press the switch. Its amazing how quickly we have learnt to not turn the light off as we leave *some might say thats what we did anyway!

https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-standalone-pir-360/9695v

Posted on
Mon Apr 06, 2020 9:22 am
howartp offline
Posts: 4559
Joined: Jan 09, 2014
Location: West Yorkshire, UK

Re: Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

Hehe, yes we have those (or similar) in all the loos and back corridors at church.

The Fibaro also contributes to the electric heater (not water radiator) in there, both as temperature sensor and to build logic on occupancy.


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Posted on
Sun Apr 12, 2020 1:33 am
noel1983 offline
Posts: 446
Joined: Oct 17, 2014

Re: Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

siclark wrote:
Whilst I whole heartedly approve of your tinkering... for lights in toilets, there is a much easier way that :shock: doesnt involve indigo for simple scnearios like lighgts in a toilet.

I have just wired these in to the lighting main in the ceiling going to the lights, they are very unobtrusive and will always work. Well, if someone has turned the light switch off they wont, but then I dont need the lights to come on if no one is in there, and if someone walks in and the lights dont come on, they just press the switch. Its amazing how quickly we have learnt to not turn the light off as we leave *some might say thats what we did anyway!

https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-standalone-pir-360/9695v
I took this one further in my old house and ran a parallel circuit through a mains timer and dimmer switch. Meant that overnight lights came on dimmed down, was my pre indigo days and was one of my most satisfying HA achievements :)


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Posted on
Sun Apr 12, 2020 2:00 am
siclark offline
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Joined: Jun 13, 2017
Location: UK

Re: Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

Genius

Posted on
Sun Apr 12, 2020 9:28 pm
mundmc offline
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Re: Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

siclark wrote:
Genius
+1 Brilliant

Posted on
Mon Apr 20, 2020 12:48 am
Frakke offline
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Joined: May 05, 2016

Re: Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

Hi,

Do you have some pictures please? :D

Posted on
Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:01 am
howartp offline
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Joined: Jan 09, 2014
Location: West Yorkshire, UK

Re: Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

Oops, here you go.
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Posted on
Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:41 am
akimball offline
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Joined: Aug 07, 2013
Location: Sandy, Utah

Re: Hardwired Fibaro motion sensors

Very cool. I have one of these at home. Sometimes the voltage regulator IC for these gadgets is near the battery source and typically is some kind of switching regulator requiring a couple of input caps and output caps... also the output will have a power inductor near the regulators output pins. Usually a voltage divider constitutes the feedback setting source to the switching voltage regulator. The regulator may be a simple buck type if the sensor part of the design can run at 1.8v but if not it may be a buck-boost type. A part number on the regulator will lead to a manufactures voltage regulator’s datasheet. The regulator datasheet along with voltage values of the input caps will allow us to ascertain the power source absolute maximum and minimum voltage levels.

If I remember when I return home I’ll take a look and report back any findings.

-Al

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