I spent today rewiring my lighting system a bit--the clips seem to release a lot over the winter, so I clipped the wires and directly wired them to the 12 volt line.
Also, I noted that my entire southern face lighting burns out yearly. Some investigation shows I probably shouldn't have that in the 14 volt tap since it's close to the transformer and not much amperage. Let that be a word to the wise!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Lighting System Revamp
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2 comments:
Hey morph,
I've done quite a bit with yard lights. But I didn't know about the 12 vs 14 taps. Can you elaborate? (I have a 600 watt transformer, if it makes any difference.
Sure thing. A lot of manufacturers (but not all) put two or more output taps on their transformers. The 12 volt is for short runs. Since you lose voltage on a long run due to resistance (and also if you have a large number of low-wattage lights), they put those there so you can ramp up the voltage to compensate.
In my case, I had three lines coming off the one transformer--one long run with lots of lights, two short runs with few lights. I'd made the mistake of putting all three into the 14 volt output--only the long run needed it since the first light on that started 25 feet down the line. The other two lines were less than 20' each.
The price was that I burned out lamps rated for 2,000 hours in less than a year since they were being over-powered. I'll have to wait until tonight (I didn't look last night) to see if they're noticeably less bright. I'm expecting they will be.
Update: I can't tell the difference. The differential between 12 and 14 volts is only about 17%, so I guess that's not enough for a visual change.
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