Re: How to turn on a light across a room without a wire?

[ddl@danlan.*com (Dan Lanciani)]

In article <1165992850.046527.77200@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, callmevlad@xxxxxxxxx writes:
| I live in an apartment (so messing with the in-wall fixtures is out of
| the question), and I have 2 lamps in my living room.  One of the lamps
| is controlled by a switch on one side of the room ... flip the switch,
| and there's light.  The other one, however, we have to turn on by hand
| because it's across the room and there is no way to wire the two lamps
| to be on the same outlet.
|
| Is there a solution out there which will help me set it up so that the
| light switch I have now (I don't want to add another switch) can
| control both lights?
|
| Is there a gadget that will hook up to the outlet which is currently
| controlled by the wall switch (between the outlet and the lamp), and
| somehow send a signal (either via IR or the power lines) to another
| "gadget" that is set up between the second lamp and an always-on
| outlet? This way, when I flip the switch, both lights come on.
|
| Anyone have any suggestions? I'm a newbie at this stuff, so any
| pointers will be appreciated.

Once upon a time, before sophisticated control systems like X10 were
available, there were simple carrier-based devices for remotely switching
a light based simply on the presense of the carrier.  One such system
was the Sears Electronic Switch (transmitter part # 34-5472 and lamp
module part # 34-5473).  The transmitter features a choice of two carrier
frequencies for the independent control of up to two devices (only one
at a time with only one transmitter, of course).  When the transmitter
is switched on and has power it generates a carrier (either 197kHz or
150kHz).  As long as the receiver lamp module hears the carrier it will
be on.

The Sears system could do exactly what you want by connecting the (switched
on) transmitter to the switched outlet and using the receiver lamp module at
the unswitched outlet.  It might annoy your neighbors if they use X10 or power
line intercoms/baby monitors, though.  You may be able to find such a system
on eBay or such.  I suppose it's even vaguely possible that someone still makes
a remote control that works this way.

If you are somewhat handy with electronics you could cobble something
together with X10.  Plug a wall wart into the switched outlet and use
it to activate an X10 RF remote via some combination of relays.  I'd
have to look at the available X10 remotes to see which could most
easily be convinced to send single bursts of ON and OFF commands with
a minimum of external logic.  If you wanted to get really sophisticated
you could introduce a microcontroller...

Now if you could live with having the other lamp turn on but not off
with the wall switch (you would have to turn it off with some other
remote) you could probably just use an X10 Security Interface Module
(aka burglar alarm interface) or even a mini console (the type with
combined address/command buttons that do not repeat when held) with
a button clamped down.  If you are lucky the latter might power up in
the right state.

				Dan Lanciani
				ddl@danlan.*com