Very minimalist light sensor with flicker issue

Dave sent this for our exploration. It's a dusk sensor that was built into a wall mounting bulkhead light, but the very minimist circuitry means that at the transition from day to dusk (and dawn) the light will flicker.

This module was probably intended for tungsten bulbs, but has survived the transition to LED versions. The stability issue is purely down to the simplicity of the circuitry and the lack of significant hysteresis at the switching point. There's a high probability that it's sensitive to light leakage from the bulb it's controlling.

Given that it seems to switch near the zero crossing point, it shouldn't harm most lamps, but it's still not an ideal way to control them.

The fix is to swap it out for a three wire version that has a permanent supply so it can use more sophisticated circuitry.


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