Anyway, the came with some weird connectors on the end, so I had to email the suppliers and ask what I needed to hook them up to. Turns out they are sold as mains lights as well as 12v system lights, hence the adapters. All I had to do was cut the adapter off and wire them straight in.
I have 6 lights to use and I wanted to use 2 lights per light switch. Here is a diagram of my lighting system. The lights will be wired in parallel in order for each light to be the same brightness and use the same amount of power:
I had no idea how to attach to wires together but a bit of research and somebody informed me of "wago" lever connectors. These are the easiest things to use!! Basically, you get them in 2, 3 and 5 terminals. All you have to do with these is strip the wire at the end, pop it into the hole and push the lever down! You then put whatever other wires you need into the other holes and hey presto! So I am using these to connect the 2 light +ve and -ve cables to a bigger 2.5mm2 cable that will go to the switch and back to the fuse box.
In order to fit the lights, I needed to cut a hole in the cladding that was 57mm diameter. This meant I needed a 57mm holesaw! I asked about on facebook to see if I could borrow one from anybody. It was my birthday in a couple of days and we had gone to see my friends Jay and Loys. They gave me an early present... a 57mm holesaw!! haha thanks guys!
So I started picking where the lights were going to go and got to cutting the holes. The LEDs just clamp into the holes so nothing to fit really. Once the holes were cut, I used a home made "cardboard" tool, to feed the wires to either side behind the cladding. I then attached the relevant leads to a wago connector and taped them to the wall until I get the switch etc.
Here's some pics of me working and the outcome:
Working out where the lights needed to go (holding bathroom wall!)
Cutting light holes
Sawdust all over me..
Nice one John.
ReplyDeleteReally no need for the 2.5mm cable tho mate, 1.5 or even 1mm cable would have been more than ample.
2.5mm can carry up to 27 amps and I'm pretty sure you won't be drawing anywhere near that amount of power from those little bad boys.
2.5mm is normally for sockets matey.
Nice one John.
ReplyDeleteReally no need for the 2.5mm cable tho mate, 1.5 or even 1mm cable would have been more than ample.
2.5mm can carry up to 27 amps and I'm pretty sure you won't be drawing anywhere near that amount of power from those little bad boys.
2.5mm is normally for sockets matey.
Cheers Stef! The only reason I'm using 2.5mm is due to having ordered it in bulk. As I will need to wire a lot of the smaller stuff up with it. So rather than getting a load of different sizes, I just went for that!
ReplyDelete