When you start shopping for garden lighting, one of the first terms that you run into is low voltage. This simply means that you will be using less electricity (voltage) to operate your lights, in most cases, only 12 volts. Since your house is wired for 120 volts, you can’t just plug in the low voltage lights to your regular outlet, you need a “transformer” to reduce the 120 volts you have to the 12 volts you need. It sounds much more complicated than it really is.
A Kit Will Come With The Proper Size Transformer
When you buy alow voltage garden lighting kit, it will contain the proper sized transformer for that set of lights. But what if you want to connect more then one set, or if you want to put together a custom set? Many times, a kit will contain a number of pathway lights and possibly one or two spotlights. If your driveway or walkway is longer than normal, or if you want to add step lights or extra spotlights, you are going to need a larger transformer to handle the extra load.
A Transformer Is An Electronic Device That Adjusts The Voltage Of Your House Current
The transformer is actually an inverter, an electronic device that plugs into your 120 volt house current and steps it down to 12 volts. The wiring for your low voltage lights will either plug in to the transformer box or you will need to wrap the wires around a couple of screws. Either option is simple and your transformer will come with easy to follow instructions.
Landscape Lighting Kit - Click for more info
Landscape Lighting Kit - Click for more info
Simple Math Will Help You Pick The Right Transformer
If you are creating your own system from scratch, or adding to an existing kit, you will need to do some simple math to figure out which size of transformer to buy. The packaging will tell you how many watts each light uses, so you multiply the watts of each light times the number of lights, then add about 25% of that total for the wire. For example, say you are using 10 lights that are 12 watts each: 10 x 12 = 120. Then we add approximately 25% for the wiring: 120 x .25 = 30. The original 120 watts, plus the 30 watts that we will lose in the length of the wire tells us that we need a transformer that will handle at least 150 watts. If you come up with an odd number, always round up. You never want to overload a transformer and purchasing one larger than you need leaves you plenty of leeway should you decide to add to your system later on.
Don’t Cut Corners When Dealing With Electricity
As a final note, do not skip the step of adding 25% for the wiring. Voltage drops a small amount with every foot of wire, meaning you won’t have as much electricity at the end of your wire as you do at the beginning. Not having enough electricity to operate properly can cause flickering and shorten the life of your bulbs, so make sure you remember this very important step when choosing the transformer for your low voltage garden lighting.
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