garage door opener + LED lights same feed

[orangedude]

So, today my garage door opener is fed by an extension cord to a wall socket which is less than ideal. At the same time, i have a 3way light switch that controls a ceiling mounted bulb. Im thinking there must be a way to use X10 or some wireless switches in place of the current light switches, wire them to continuous power instead of switched power.. Then install a junction box where the existing light bulb is that has both switched, and unswitched power. Im going to run probably 8 4ft led strips so not a ton of amperage. Anyone ever accomplish such a thing? Pulling new wire is not an easy option

 

[matt_i]

I'm confused as to what you want to do.

The garage door opener should have a duplex outlet, constantly hot/energized/not switched.

Do you need the remote operation of X10? Not sure what you are trying to accomplish with the lights? There are wifi switches available, I looked briefly at Wemo but there appear to be a lot of complaints about maintaining network connectivity in the reviews.

 

[Whiskeymike]

I've seen where guys have modified their garage opener lights where they removed the bulb and connected LED lighting out of them. It's more of a direct wire connection that automatically turns on when you open/close the door. Might do some searches here or on google.

 

[Sokoloff]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002DN6QX2/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[orangedude]

I'm confused as to what you want to do.

The garage door opener should have a duplex outlet, constantly hot/energized/not switched.

Do you need the remote operation of X10? Not sure what you are trying to accomplish with the lights? There are wifi switches available, I looked briefly at Wemo but there appear to be a lot of complaints about maintaining network connectivity in the reviews.

the garage door currently is plugged into an outlet under my workbench via an extension cord run across the ceiling, then down the wall. But there is a switched light socket right next to the garage door opener. So my idea is to convert the light socket to a constantly hot outlet.. but also then have a separate feed off of the box to control lights. So i would need a way for the light switch by the door, to turn on lights remotely. I assume this would need to be wireless or possibly some sort of system that runs a digital signal through the hot/wirleess line to a receiver box near the new outlet box on the ceiling..

 

[orangedude]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002DN6QX2/?tag=atomicindus08-20

yep., have two of these in the garage door opener today running two external LED lights.. but per my second comment..im trying to eliminate the extension cord across the ceiling and wall, but still retain a switchable hot on the ceiling.. Mostly because i don't want to power 8 4ft led strips out of the garage door opener..

 

[Sokoloff]

OK, you have a three way switch feeding the ceiling outlet. First step is to go take that outlet out of the ceiling and see if you have a 14/3 feeding it. (If you do, you'll have a red wire in the box.) If you do, great! You (probably) won't need to pull a new wire.

Now, the next step is to figure out where [which switch] that box is fed from. If it's fed from where you want the control, you're golden. If you have a red in the box, it's probably in the middle of the circuit and to make this work, you'll end up stranding one of the switches as useless. If it's fed from the side that you don't want to use for control, you can still do it, but you want to physically take the feeding switch out of the circuit and make both red and black from that switch always hot, then feed the black to the always hot outlet and the red out to the switch you want to maintain and take the black return from that switch to run the outlet for the lights. Easier to open up the box, figure out what you have, and we can help you from there if you can't draw it out yourself. (It seems like you have a pretty good handle on the situation, so you should be good.)

That will allow you to split feed an outlet (red switched to one outlet, black always hot to the other outlet for the garage opener) and also to take that red feed out of the box to run the other hard-wired lights. You could also run the always-hot to both receptacles in the box and run the red switched to the lights. Your call.

If the garage door outlet is at the end of the run and fed from a 14/2 (no red wire in the box), you're going to have to go with something like your plan. What Whiskeymike and I were suggesting was to use the GDO as the light switch and run your lights off of that. (IOW, instead of using X10, use the GDO. Many have a way to lock the lights on.) All the lights would come on when using the GDO, of course. That would be trivially easy.

Another choice would be to use the GDO to switch a solid state or a mechanical relay if you're concerned about the current flowing through the garage door opener's relay. (I wouldn't hesitate to run 120W of LED lighting off that relay, since the GDO was probably designed to run 2 60W incandescent lamps anyway.)

 

[orangedude]

If the garage door outlet is at the end of the run and fed from a 14/2 (no red wire in the box), you're going to have to go with something like your plan. What Whiskeymike and I were suggesting was to use the GDO as the light switch and run your lights off of that. (IOW, instead of using X10, use the GDO. Many have a way to lock the lights on.) All the lights would come on when using the GDO, of course. That would be trivially easy.

Yep no red wire in the outlet. So the new plan is to wire in a Z-wave split receptical (I've got a couple laying around the house), then change out the switches to Z-wave switches.

 

[Sokoloff]

Sorry, I mis-typed a bit, but I think you probably figured it out anyway.

When I said "look for red wire in the GDO outlet", I meant the one on the ceiling near the GDO currently feeding the lights, not the one that your GDO is currently hooked up to via extension cord.