Low Voltage Transformer - Choose the Right Low Voltage Transformer for Your Landscape Lighting Syste
Choosing the right low voltage transformer for your outdoor lighting system is critical to avoid costly damage to the outdoor lighting fixtures and bulbs, and most importantly, for safety.
It's not particularly complicated, but a common mistake, not paying attention to the numbers, could result in sending a much too high voltage through the low voltage wiring to the matching low-voltage lights, and consequently burning them all out.
For example, a typical low-voltage transformer would transform normal household current of 110Vs to 12Vs to properly power a low voltage outdoor lighting system for a pool area. If somehow the wrong low-voltage transformer was chosen, double that amount of power, or more, could reach the low power outdoor bulbs and burn them out in seconds, just like that. You certainly wouldn't want that to happen. You would have to then replace all the bulbs and replace the transformer too.
You want all the components to match correctly: the low voltage transformer, the low power outside wiring, the low power switches and the low power exterior lightbulbs. All low power, all the components matching concerning equal power requirements; resulting in an eco friendly, efficient, safe outdoor lighting system.
One way to avoid virtually any possibility of "messing it up," is to have a completely professional installation. Of course that would cost you more money than doing it yourself, considering the labor costs. For some people though, that is the best decision to make. Perhaps a good compromise would be to purchase a landscape lighting kit (see Hadco and Malibu) -- as long as the vast majority of the components are what you would have purchased separately for your planned project; including the critically selected low voltage transformer.
If you go that route, you could virtually complete the project yourself, though it is highly recommended that in any such installation that you have a licensed electrician make the final hook up to the homes circuit breaker box. Unless it is a particularly modest and simple installation which is just pluged into an exterior 110 V outlet. With common sense and reasonable care that would obviously work out fine for such a modest installation.
It's not particularly complicated, but a common mistake, not paying attention to the numbers, could result in sending a much too high voltage through the low voltage wiring to the matching low-voltage lights, and consequently burning them all out.
For example, a typical low-voltage transformer would transform normal household current of 110Vs to 12Vs to properly power a low voltage outdoor lighting system for a pool area. If somehow the wrong low-voltage transformer was chosen, double that amount of power, or more, could reach the low power outdoor bulbs and burn them out in seconds, just like that. You certainly wouldn't want that to happen. You would have to then replace all the bulbs and replace the transformer too.
You want all the components to match correctly: the low voltage transformer, the low power outside wiring, the low power switches and the low power exterior lightbulbs. All low power, all the components matching concerning equal power requirements; resulting in an eco friendly, efficient, safe outdoor lighting system.
One way to avoid virtually any possibility of "messing it up," is to have a completely professional installation. Of course that would cost you more money than doing it yourself, considering the labor costs. For some people though, that is the best decision to make. Perhaps a good compromise would be to purchase a landscape lighting kit (see Hadco and Malibu) -- as long as the vast majority of the components are what you would have purchased separately for your planned project; including the critically selected low voltage transformer.
If you go that route, you could virtually complete the project yourself, though it is highly recommended that in any such installation that you have a licensed electrician make the final hook up to the homes circuit breaker box. Unless it is a particularly modest and simple installation which is just pluged into an exterior 110 V outlet. With common sense and reasonable care that would obviously work out fine for such a modest installation.
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