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. Circuit diagram : Automatic TV Lighting Switch Circuit Diagram 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 ...