How would you wire 6 mains spot lights together?

[Cordless Crazy]

How would you wire 6 mains spot lights together? I am setting them ou

such that I have a set (consisting of 2 lights) between a pair o joist. 3 sets in total spread across the room, making the 6No lights.

Simple enough, but as there are a few options what is the preferred:

1. All in series using 6 junction boxes plus 1 to connect to the ol light supply. (7No 6A JB's in total)
2. Split the lighting supply like a star so they are essentially i parallel. This in theory will not work with a typical 6A JB as it onl allows a max of 4 wires to connect at once. Could I use a 32A and fir all the 6 'tails' plus 1 supply in to this? (1No 32A JB only)
3. Have them wired in 3 sets of two i.e. 2 lights going in to 1 JB the all connecting to a further JB in to which the supply comes (4 6A JB' in total)

I is thinking of doing the third option. What do you lot reckon

-- Cordless Crazy

[Richard Conway]

Can you not get two wires into the terminals of each spot so you can go from one to the next without any JBs?

[Rob Morley]

You don't mean series-wired (each lamp would only get 40v), you mean daisy-chained. Why do you need a junction box to do this?

They have to be in parallel anyway. This is a great way of using lots of cable.

I reckon that it would be illegal for you to install any fixed wiring in your house.

[Cordless Crazy]

You reckon correct, but that will not stop me doing it

-- Cordless Crazy

[Cordless Crazy]

Yes, I can, but as Rob said do the lights not end up with only 40v eac and very dim

-- Cordless Crazy

[Richard Conway]

Only if you wire them in series which isn't what I suggested

[Rob Morley]

They're not in series, they're in parallel. Each fitting except the end one has a live in and a live out in one terminal, a neutral in and a neutral out in the other terminal.

+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+---------- LIVE | | | | | | | | | | | | 0 0 0 0 0 0 | | | | | | | | | | | | +--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------- NEUTRAL

I'd do it in two sets of three fittings each, so you have one cable run down each side of the room. Only one junction box is needed:

________ _____________NEUTRAL \ / NEUTRAL TO LIGHTS X ________/ ________ _____________EARTH \ / EARTH TO LIGHTS X ________/ \ \ ________ \ \ \_______________ LIVE TO LIGHTS X | ________/ \_____________. | \ SWITCH _____________. \ / X \_____________LIVE

[David Hansen]

On Mon, 6 Mar 2006 11:20:14 +0000 someone who may be Cordless Crazy wrote this:-

I would look at wiring them up in groups that illuminate different parts of the room and provide switches for each group. Then only those lights that are needed could be turned on, saving electricity.

[Richard Conway]

My God, don't confuse the man further :)

[Owain]

Those series-parallel arrangements using Lundberg special switches always appealed to me :-)

Owain

[Cordless Crazy]

So to clarify, if I daisy chained them from one to the other would have a problem with dim lights?

i.e the supply cable that run to my old existing strip light i re-routed to connect to the first downlighter, then both the live an neutral run out of the terminal block on the first downlighter and i to the second. Then thrid, fourth etc

-- Cordless Crazy

[Rob Morley]

No - the voltage across each fitting will be about 240v, just as if they each had a separate connection to the fusebox.

[tonytrans]

Looks OK. You always have to consider the rating of the cable, bu since you are only using a diddyAmp for this, it should not be problem. Do not forget to do the same with the Earth!

AJ

-- tonytrans