Thread: Wiring for Low Voltage Exterior lights

Firstly I'm not a sparky but I have installed lots of these in my home....in fact better than the sparky who did some 240V ones...I took a lot longer, took my time....

Ensure that the light circuit is off.....test with a multi meter...

Essentially the cable connection goes like this.....

From your light switch you should have at least two 1mm cables.

1. Mains power to the switch
2. The 1mm cable the light.

At the switch both earth wires (green and yella) should be terminated, probably in a double screw connector and wrapped in tape..maybe even the green and yella stuff.

The cable going to the light will have its red (Active or Live) connected to the 1 position...this means power flows from the switch wehn the switch is turned on....

At the transformer....they usually have end caps that come off to avoid having exposed wires...you only have the active and the neutral connected to the transformer (the neutral is the black).

They connect in via screw binding posts...

Note that at this end the earth should be terminated in a double screw connector, folded back on the cable and then taped in the cable..again in nice green and yella tape..

Now at the other end take the usually white end caps off the cable and connect them into the 12V (11.5!) end, hard to go wrong at this end......

Does that answer your question?

Mike,

I am not a sparky so you do not have to take this advice.

HPM has "garden light cable connectors" catlouge number: DGLCC10, comes in 10 per pack.

Just stripping the 12V mains and connecting individual lights using these will be better than cutting the 12V mains.

Cheers,
Theva

Originally Posted by MikeK

Question: How do I connect the lights into the main cable? Coming out of the light is a shielded cable with 2 wires. The main cable has 2 wires. Do I completely cut the main cable and splice the incoming positive, the light positive and out outgoing positive together (with the same for the negatives)? Or is there some other funky method?

If youre dealing with 12 volts DC then it doesnt really matter which lead on the light gets attached the "positive" or "negative" output from the transformer. A light globe is a passive device and doesnt have polarity (LEDs different).

If youre wiring more than one light into the same DC circuit then you have a choice of wiring the lights in parallel or series. If the lights are in series then one lamp blowing will break the circuit and kill all the other lights on the same circuit. Wiring in parallel means remaining lights will stay on if one light goes down.

NOTE: Im talking about the LOW VOLTAGE side of the transformer. If youre going to fiddle with the HIGH voltage side of the transformer then usual guidelines and adherance to regulations apply as for any mains powered work....get a sparky to do it or if you do it yourself get it checked by a sparkie.

firtsly these low voltage lights will be running on AC (unless they are connected to a battery), The will work with the wires connected either way BUT matching stripe to stripe keeps the electro fairies happy.
They need to be connected in paralell, assuming you are using 12 volt lamps and a 12 volt transformer.
There are wire "taps" available that are an insulation displacement device. their effectiveness can be argued.
Twisting & soldering is a good option.
strip the wires from the fitting, seperate the wires of the fig 8 & carefully strip a short section without cutting the wire, twist the fitting on & solder.
now you need to insulate.
If its a short term thing you might get away with standard (good quality) insultape. If its long term self amalgamating tape is very good.
or smother the individual joints in epoxy then tape up.
The wire taps are looking better.
or you could do a screw terminal joint in a junction box. preferably above ground.
If you only want to put one fitting onto the enmd of a wire & thats it. soldering & epoxy filled heat shrink tube is good.
OR
epoxy filled heat shrink crimp lugs. I think they might stretch to 10mm2. I know they got to 6mm2.
heaps of options
The wire taps are looking good
cheers

spelling

Originally Posted by MikeK

Question: How do I connect the lights into the main cable? Coming out of the light is a shielded cable with 2 wires. The main cable has 2 wires. Do I completely cut the main cable and splice the incoming positive, the light positive and out outgoing positive together (with the same for the negatives)? Or is there some other funky method?

Note: I should also mention that I will use a heat shrink seal to waterproof each joint.

Thanks,
Mike.

Yes
Yadda yadda etc
if your going to use shrink fit then you need to cut the cable to slide the shrink fit tube on
My only advice is to use two layers of shrink fit ie..two diffrent sizes shrink one first let cool then slide the second over and shrink that

As to connecting all positive to positave crap just wire it up

pm if you have problems


Rgds
Russell



The trouble with life is there's no background music.

I wouldn't consider heatshrink unless it was hot glue lined, then one thickness will be fine. I wouldnt use it in a "T OFF" sutuation either the gaps between the cables wont seal relaibly.

You've gota keep the electro fairies happy. Connect stripe to stripe it will give you a warm inner glow.

cheers

Re your question about shielded cable,

Join a shot length of figure 8 to the shielded with the heatshrink and solder, then you can join as many as you need to a run of figure 8 either with solder and heatshrink or crimp connectors