I'm going to try some under-kitchen cupboard LEDS. The supply is a 12V
Could I could just trail some thin (but a lot thicker than that coming from the transformer) bell-wire type cable behind the kitchen units, fixed out of the way but not in a conduit? And joining a 4m extension using solder and heat-shrink?
Well I'd have thought that as long as the supply you use is rated correctly for the load, and has a tolerance for short circuits and is very well isolated mains wise, I'd really see no issues. Just look at the way garden lights are 'installed' where the cable is just either using IDC or choc block connectors. The number of times such installations get mown cut with shears etc, has to be be quite great, yet the power transformer copes or blows a fuse. Brian
why not
Speaker cable,cheap flexible availble in large diameters if it`s going a long way, Scotchloks as in the vampire tap type and Wago connectors are your friends.
One of Wago 222 features is ability to join cables of very different diameters ,try that with choc bloc ;-)
Considering the future, when no-one knows what has been done : every piece of hidden cabling should be visually similar wherever it comes out of hidin g, to help anyone who later may want to trace the electrical distribution i n the property. So take the bell-wire all the way from the LEDS to the tra nsformer, with the joint at the transformer itself. You could perhaps even glue it to the transformer, so providing strain-relief for the thin transf ormer wire.
Do Wago etc work with stranded wires? I thought they were solid core only.
Yes - fine or coarse.
Lever type are designed for both.
Since looked at a Wago datasheet, the push-in are only suitable for "coarse" stranded conductors not "fine" flexable conductors. The cage clamp or lever type can accept fine flexable conductors.
easy, usually. Only if you go down to say radio ferrite winding wire does it get difficult.
NT
Yes - I was thinking of the lever type. The Hager that I've been using can take fine-stranded wire as the terminal has to be pushed open unless the conductor is solid, so any type of stranded is reatively easy to get in.
+1 to Adam's points.
Dave: For stranded, you need the wago fitting with little levers.
One little note though - the 'lighting connectors' - 224 series take solid core (or coarse stranded) at one end - and flexible multi stranded at the other end, witha sprung connector that you push down to insert the cable
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required