Pathway lights, entrance foyer lighting, house numbers and outside security lights all need to be lit at the onset of darkness; ie, sunset. Of course you can switch these lights on manually each day when darkness falls and switch them off in the morning but it is too easy to forget. The result is that lights are often left on all day and that can waste a lot of electricity.

What you need is a sunset switch - a fully automatic switch which turns on at dusk and off at sunrise. You probably also want a timer that switches the power off after a few hours (selectable). And we'll throw in manual ON and OFF switching so that you can override the system.

So that's what we've done. The SILICON CHIP Sunset Switch has all of the above features and can switch up to 6A at 240VAC. This gives a total load of 1440W of lights or whatever. The unit is housed in a rugged plastic case with a clear lid which allows the ambient light to be detected by the internal light dependent resistor. There is also a LED inside the box to indicate whenever power is applied.