Collection Schematic

The author is the happy owner of a television set with built-in Ambilight lighting in the living room. Unfortunately, the television set in  the bedroom lacks this feature. To make up for this, the author attached a small lamp to the wall to provide background lighting, This makes  watching television a good deal more enjoyable, but it ’s  not the ideal solution. Although the TV set can be  switched off with the remote  control, you still have to get out of bed to switch off the lamp.

Consequently, the author devised this automatic lighting switch that switches the background light on and off along with the T V set. The entire circuit is fitted in series with the mains cable of the TV set, so there’s no need to tinker with the set. It works as follows: R1 senses  the current drawn by the TV  set. It has a maximum value  of 50 mA in standby mode,  rising  to around   500 m A  when  the  set  is  operating. The voltage across R1 is limited by D5 during negative  half- cycles  and  by  D1– D4  during positive half-cycles.  T he  voltage  across  these  four diodes charges capacitor C1 via D6 during positive  half-cycles. This voltage drives the internal LED of solid-state switch TRI1 via R2, which causes the internal triac to conduct and pass the mains voltage to the lamp.   Diode D7 is not absolutely necessary, but  it is recommended because the LED in the  solid-state switch is not especially robust  and cannot handle reverse polarisation. Fuse  F1 protects the solid-state switch against  overloads. T he  value  of  use d  here  (10 Ω)  for  resistor R1 works nicely with an 82-cm (32 inch)  LCD screen.

With smaller sets having lower  power consumption, the value of R1 can be  increased to 22 or 33 Ω, in which case you  should use a 3-watt type. Avoid using an  excessively high resistance, as otherwise TRI1 will switch on when the TV set is in standby mode.  Some TV sets have a half-wave rectifier in the  power supply, which places an unbalanced  load on the AC power outlet. If the set only  draws current on negative half-cycles, the cir-cuit won’t work properly. In countries with  reversible AC power plugs you can correct  the problem by simply reversing the plug. Compared with normal triacs, optically cou-pled solid-state relays have poor resistance  to high switch-on currents (inrush currents).

For this reason, you should be careful with  older-model TV sets with picture tubes (due  to demagnetisation circuits). If the relay fails,  it usually fails shorted, with the result that the TV background light remains on all the time. If you build this circuit on a piece of perf-board, you must remove all the copper next  to conductors and components carrying  mains voltage. Use PCB terminal blocks with a spacing of 7.5 mm. This way the separation between the connections on the solder  side will also be 3 mm. If you fit the entire  arrangement as a Class II device, all parts of  the circuit at mains potential must have a  separation of at least 6 mm from any metal  enclosure or electrically conductive exterior  parts that can be touched.