Lighting up my world
I ended up with a day on my hands. I could have spent it feeling sorry for myself (and did start down that route) before I picked myself up by the scruff of my neck and gave myself a shake down!
Get to the chase? So what?
Over the past 5 years, I have had many entries in this blog regarding the installation of LED lights to replace halogens.
Yesterday, after 5 years, I realised the last part of that journey.
Not so hard was it?
Figure 1: Connection box
Indeed not. Every six months or so, I visited shops and on-line stores and finally found that the solution I was looking for did exist.
Cabinets lighting, in particular, downlighting spots: such lamps did come out a few years ago but having an existing solution in place I did not want to replace more than just the lights. When we first moved in I assessed what we had and knew I wanted to keep my life as simple as possible.
Last weekend, I found what I was looking for. Downlights.co.uk supplied so many options I ended up using a pair of callipers to work out what I had and my approach.
What was the approach?
Figure 2: The driver
We had some G20 bulbs in situ. They were 63mm in diameter and about 30mm in depth. My husband and I worked out how to remove them and then I looked at how they were wired into the mains.
Most of them went through a “connection point”. Doing anything different (and I could go straight to the mains) would increase the complexity, so I went for the Leyton TOP6 connected 2W LED spots. Dimensions looked great as they should make use of or cover up the existing fittings perfectly, see Figure 1: connection box above. In turn that was connected to a “driver” in LED parlance (a transformer for the halogens) seen in Figure 2.
I made my order (for the record we had 12 20W fittings we were replacing. That’s 240W an hour consumption – we never used the lights more than 10 minutes at a time). The bulbs turned up on Monday!
I chose three connection points, basically, I went a little more cautiously and had 2 15W ones and a single 6W. With an afternoon on my hands, I decided to make a start.
Taking out the old
Basically, a flat head screwdriver was my friend and I prised off the lamp holder from the fittings reasonably easily. That exposed the screws attaching the holders to the cabinets. Towards the end, it was taking 3mins to remove one.
As the halogens had a similar connection to the transformers, I un-clipped the lamp from the connection point and pulled through the wires.
I popped out the LED lamps from their holders and fed then through the wire channels and finally killed the power to insert the LED “driver” for this part of the circuit.
The first run of four took just shy of an hour from start to finish.
Easy-peasy then!
Figure 3: Lit cabinet
Inadvertently, I had chosen the easiest ones to do but the second set were pretty straight forward too. A similar job, made slightly easier by the fact there were no “in cabinet” lights in Figure 3.
The last set were the hardest. The four lights were integrated in to the mains by the weirdest method possible. Two of the lights seemed to be connected directly to the mains.
I simplified the wiring circuit, moved the connector to being on top of the units rather than attached to the bottom of a set and got my husband to pull out the old wiring (bless him).
Connected the pattress and switched on the power. To find nothing on the lighting circuit was working. D?^*. The fuses seemed fine – had I managed to not wire in the mains?
I disconnected everything and tried the power again. Still nada. What was going on?
My husband finally noticed the RCD had switched so flipped. I opened up the pattress and properly shielded the earth (I know, it has been hot here the past view weeks and the 20th July was no exception) it back up and low, there was light.
The one pattress I had kept in circuit was ditched and we tried one of the others (though I think it was dimensions more than anything else). It then worked.
Was it worth it?
Last night we sat in the kitchen after watching a movie with the cabinet lights on and none of the ceiling lights. Absolutely 😀
The 11 lights now use 22W electricity so an unit of electricity in 45 hours (or 12p to run the lights for 45 hours).
Posted: July 28th, 2018 under 42, Driving off the grid.