LED staircase lights fade-in & fade-out, triggered with sensors and touch button

[Peter]

 

Greetings,

 

I’ve mounted thirteen LEDs in our staircase, each with its own resistor. The LEDs are currently driven by a 5 volt switch regulated power supply and they are ON all the time.

 

With only hardware, no pic-programming, I would like to accomplish the below, is it possible?

 

For cozy evenings:

I would like to have one touch button at the bottom floor and one touch button on the top floor. When pressing once, on any of the buttons, the stair LEDs will fade-in, pressing any of the buttons again (upstairs or downstairs) will fade-out the LEDs. Giving me the chioce of having the stair LEDs on or off whenever i decide.

 

For night time:

Following scenario shall only take place when the lights are off. If I take one step in the stair, either from the top floor or down stairs I would like this to trigger (with some typ of sensor) the LEDs to fade in and stay on for two or three minutes and then fade-out again, with no action if I pass the sensors several times within this time limit before fading out

 

I appreciate any help and guidance with this project, along with circuits and components. The 555 timer circuit could probably take place in this project. I have experience in soldering but not electronic construction.

 

Best Regards,

-Peter

[AJISH ALFRED]

Hi Peter,

You can find lot of similar stuff from this website. Only few links are given below;

http://www.engineersgarage.com/electronic-circuits/dancing-led

http://www.engineersgarage.com/dancing-led/tags/dancing-led

 

Use the following link to find more circuits,

http://www.engineersgarage.com/electronics-circuits-diagrams-list

 

 

 

[Peter]

Hi Alfred,

 

First I would like to thank you for your quick response/reply regarding my project. I took your advice and kept searching, both on internet and this forum. I bought some components and an “experimental card” (no soldering needed yet). I got the fade-in and fade-out working and I’ve also added a 555 timer circuit with an adjustable resistor to control the timing (how long I want my LEDs to light up my staircase). Last weekend I tuned up everything just the way I want it. Since then I’ve been struggling with the TRIGGER

The actual circuit that will trigger my 555 timer circuit to turn the LEDs on. There are numreous inspiration projects on the internet but I can’t figure out if these will do the job. They are called: IR beam breaker, ultrasonic barrier, IR transmitter and receiver, laser etc etc. I would like to find the perfect (simple and more or less cheap) trigger circuit that could do the job in both daylight and at night time, as soon as someone takes the first step, either on the bottom floor OR from upstairs, it will trigger the 555 timer circuit.

 

I appreciate any guidance towards my goal. I’ve ordered the last piece of railing (upstairs) from the “wood firm” and together with these LEDs – this project, my mission will be complete

 

Best Regards,

Peter

 

[AJISH ALFRED]

Hi Peter,

If there is large amount of daylight available at your starecase, most of the infrared sensors won’t work. You can try the ultrasonic sensors. Again installing a very high voice frequency device inside your house is not a good idea. If exeposed to the ultrasonic voice 24 hours a day it may affect those who are inside the house, in many ways.   

I suggest to go for PIR sensor, an IR sensor again, but it is basically a motion sensor. It compares the radiation from human body against the radiation from the wall and hence the day light won’t affect the sensitivity much. It has high sensitivity to moving human beings.

http://www.engineersgarage.com/articles/what-is-passive-infrared-pir-sensor?page=2

http://www.engineersgarage.com/contribution/pir-sensor-based-alarm-system

http://www.egr.msu.edu/classes/ece480/capstone/fall09/group05/docs/ece480_dt5_application_note_bseracoglu.pdf

 

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