Lights on with garage door

[mysta2]

Back in my apartment garage (pictured) I had all the florescents plugged directly into the light socket in the garage door opener with one of those screw in outlet things, and I loved the fact that all the lights came on when I opened the door. The door was a two button with which you could turn on just the light or open the door, so it worked out nicely. Now though, I have a 2 car garage in my house and a one button garage door opener. The only reason I did it the way I did at the apartment was so that I wouldn't have to do any permanent wiring.

How can I get my lights to come up with the door? Is a motion sensor the best solution? I did that in one of our closets and it was nice but in the garage I can imagine getting used to not flipping the switch and the lights going off at innoportune times. With the closet if you took too long deciding what to wear you might have to wave your arms around to turn the light back on... harder to do if you're working on something sensitive or under a car.

 

[south pier garage]

http://www.residential-landscape-lighting-design.com/store/door_jamb_switches_RLLD1877EDW.htm


http://www.residential-landscape-lighting-design.com/store/PPF/parameters/1885_0/more_info.asp


something like this might work

 

[nadogail]

1. Are the lights to come on as the door opens and go off as it closes?
2. In addition to 1, do you want to able to control the lights independently of the garage door position?
3. Will the lights be incandesant or flourescent? This makes a difference oin the controls.
4. Manual light switches are inexpensive; everything else is not, is there budget for this project?

 

[russlaferrera]

IMO , if you have to hit a button on a door remote, why not turn on a light switch?

 

[mysta2]

The solution I had in my apartment was really ideal, it was just ugly, and probably unsafe. They'd be flourescants. Why would the type of switch make a differance? They use the same wall switches and the ballasts/starters are in the fixture themselves. If I had a 2 button door switch I could possibly jump the power right out of the motor box and into the ceiling fairly descreetly. Really I'm probably making more out of it than needed as one of these:

would more or less do the same thing, but I just thought garage door people would have thought of this before.

IMO , if you have to hit a button on a door remote, why not turn on a light switch?

I don't have a light switch in my car.

 

[Torque1st]

I have a pull chain switch on my garage door opener. The lights come on whenever the garage door operates then off with a timer. The pull chain can also turn them on. The pull chain switch just operates in parallel with the light relay contacts.

 

[2LTim]

10 years ago when I worked for a home security dealer, we had a line of products called "X10." You could program all sorts of stuff to happen automaticly, or by pressing buttons, in the garage, in the car, or in any room in the house, or out in your yard. These were also available a Radio Shack and a few other retailers. In our business, we used them to control perimiter lighting in conjunction wiht the security system. With an available key fob remote, you could arm and disarm your alarm, open the garage door and turn on lights in any part of the property, from 600 feet away. How much or how little you control is easily adjusted and programable by the homeowner. If you can handle setting the clock on a VCR, you can program the system.

 

[Torque1st]

That X10 stuff seems to be very short lived in actual use. Power line transients seem to kill it.

 

[kbs2244]

I do it with 2 sets of lights.
I have remote halogens pluged into the sockets on th opener to light the way into the house.
(The timer is set to max.)
And a seprate switch for general lighting when I am going to in the garage for ome time.