I want to fit lights under my kitchen cabinets and have found some good mains ones at TLC. I want them to operate whenever my cooker hood is opened. I remember from my car days of using relays to work other circuits. I can tap into the light circuit of the hood, so where could I get a suitable relay that will operate the mains lights?
Regards
Alternatively, investigate the switch rating on the cooker hood, it may be adequate.
Perhaps the easiest to install/wire would be a plug in octal type - although it's rather more than is needed. They have two pole changeover contacts. And a base which has screw contacts.
TLC sell the relay and base for about 15 quid (SR 501) - other places like CPC, RS etc would be cheaper, but may have a minimum charge.
If you can go down the soldering route there are hundreds of different types available from electronics suppliers.
Its with TLC I'm getting the lights, so thats brilliant!!!
Thanks for you help, both of you.
Regards
its unlikely youd need a relay. The current consumption of the lights is almost certain to be below the cookerhood switch rating.
NT
Unless it's a Baumatic !! Some of their switches are hardly up to the fan itself.
I'm not so sure - florries are an inductive load. Some of the switches I've seen used for this look barely adequate for the existing tiny load.
Interestingly enough, somebody has asked me to do a job pretty much like this one.
I considered using the lamp switch within the cooker hood to operate some small lamps.
How can I tell if the switch is suitably rated to handle another
20-50W of halogen lighting via a transformer ?
If you mean a real transformer rather than an electronic one, it most probably isn't. Transformers have nasty surges on turn on unless you fit an thermistor to ramp it on.
Hi,
If it's a microswitch it should have the resistive and inductive rating on the body, the inductive is usually in brackets, eg 8(3)A means 8A resistive and 3A inductive.
If it's a standard size and there's any doubt on it's rating just replace it with something up to the job.
cheers, Pete.
Having taken a look, the switch in the cooker hood is a radio-style switch with one button for the lights and three interlocked adjacent buttons for the fan speed. All the switches are mounted on one frame.
It certainly doesn't use a standard microswitch and I can't see any rating printed on it.
Would an electronic transformer be a safe additional load then ?
I wouldn't risk it. Fit a relay. Cheaper than having to replace the switch bank - even if you can get the spares.
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