New answers tagged lighting
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You can look up NEC at NFPA.org- free registration required.
Comments in parens are my rewording.
334.10 Uses Permitted
Type NM ('Romex')....shall be permitted in 1 and 2 family dwellings, and multifamily dwellings of types III, IV and V construction
(and other buildings, but must be concealed)
A "For both exposed and concealed work in normally dry ...
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The bulbs pull straight out, there are spring clips on the back sides at each end making the connections. If you grab the bulb at the ends and pull straight out from the fixture, it will come out. Sometimes, because these were often used as vanity lights in bathrooms, the spring clips and connectors on the bulb will corrode, making it tough to remove them.
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The PDF you posted shows screw slot mounting on the back of the fixture. Are you able to shove the fixture about half an inch in one direction parallel to its long axis? It might pop off the wall or whatever it's mounted to when you do that.
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This appears to be a fairly standard monochrome LED strip using 3528s. And I apologize, but I'm going to use Metric units because that's how they're specced.
The standard/common strip has 300 LEDs per 5 metres. This comes down to 3 LED per 2" segment. There are double density (600/5m) or half-density (150/5m) strips also.
This one is a "standard 300"...
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Your LED strip has one resistor per 3 LEDs, which is the standard for a 12V strip. Each group of 3 LEDs is wired in series, with the resistor setting the appropriate current. All groups of 3 LEDs plus resistors are then wired in parallel.
White LEDs take about 3-3.6V each, so 3 in series mean 9-10.8V, with the resistor taking the rest of the voltage up to ...
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Unfortunately 3528 is simply an industry standard package name. It means the LED components are 3.5 by 2.8 mm with a specific "footprint" that describes where the terminals and solder should go on a printed circuit board.
We can see in your photo that the polarity and voltage are specified and there are markings where the tape could be cut. There are three ...
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Flickering is caused by the voltage conversion “driver”
The driver sets the correct voltage and current level. The problem with today’s led’s Is they can be just about any voltage. For instance I have some 4’ strips that fire at ~40v but need ~60v for full brightness, so you really need to find the specs to get the proper driver for your lights. But yes ...
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With 120vac the cable needs to be protected so no this would not meet current code. If you swapped the romex out for MC type cable it would or ok.
Code requires NM wiring to be covered by a minimum of 1/2” drywall or plywood. If closer than 1-1/4 inch to the surface a nail plate is required. The easiest way to run exposed wire in this case is MC or metal ...
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A bulb filament, like any load, sits between hot and netural, so I would say it shunts hot to neutral. However it is supposed to have a large amount of impedance, to prevent infinite amounts of current to flow. So "short" is not a good word here.
Constant-voltage systems are almost all power distributuion and use today. In these systems, each load is ...
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No, a “short” is an unintended connection outside design parameters.
The bulb filament is the load on the circuit and the circuit is designed for that load, things like a fuse for overcurrent protection and correctly sized cables to limit the voltage drop etc.
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Make up your mind :)
One of the tropes around here is people wanting a light to be controlled by a complex switch scheme, and also controlled by another complex switch scheme. Somehow, these are supposed to play nice together. They don't. And it degrades into a glitchy mess pretty fast.
The best answer in this case is a networked smart-switch scheme ...
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I'm only familiar with low voltage outdoor lighting and for it look into getting a transformer rated for outdoor flood lights with a photo lens to detect day/night if you want hands off. They have screws which you connect the outdoor wires too. Be sure you check the watts you need by adding up all the light watts that it runs. It just needs a standard ...
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The internals are pretty straightforward. You're just looking for loose wires in connections, loose wires at a tombstone, etc.
While you're in there, size up the wiring. If there are 2 wires to every end of every lamp, that takes a different ballast than if there is only one. Ballast swaps aren't too bad and they are also an opportunity to upgrade to ...
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shade ring or lampholder skirt. They come in different sizes. If your lampholder is that style (with a low energy lamp) you'll need an E27 shade ring and a 40mm hole in the lampholder.
Ordinary standard Bayonet Cap lampholders are smaller diameter.
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If you mean a lower wattage bulb this would not cause any problems, the fixture wiring may have shorted out tripping the breaker, or causing a wiring failure at a backstab splice. More information is needed to try and help. But a dimmer bulb would not be the cause unless the bulb itself had an internal short causing the breaker to trip or a wiring failure.
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There is no doubt that is a halogen tube style bulb. These types of bulbs have a risk to them; they get extremely hot, and can start fires.
Unless the socket can be changed to another bulb type, I advise discarding this entire fixture and replacing with LED. Aside from the higher fire risk, they also are quite inefficient. This 100W lamp replaces about ...
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Try googling "shade ring". I found quite a few that were of different sizes so you'd have to be more specific of the size.
Here's one I found at 1000bulbs.com
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Looks like a Linear Halogen R7s but you need to measure it to get the right length eg 78mm/118mm.
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There is one part you haven't tried, and that is the "ballast". Fluorescent lights aren't like incandescent lights, they can't be connected directly to mains power. They need a device to limit how much electric current they draw, and that device is the ballast.
Ballast failures on older lamps are very common. If you want to replace the ballast, you ...
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The pictures that you link to do not provide enough data to be able to give you specific guidance. Basically all that can be seen from those pictures is which switches are 3-way and which are 4-way. Oh and in addition where crappy back-stab connections are used. Additional pictures would clearly show the back inside of the electrical boxes so that the ...
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There's a lot of garbage brands in the LED bulb game, and even if it's not a garbage bulb not all dimmer products are tested against all dimmable LEDs. One of these is likely your problem.
Fortunately, Lutron actually makes known compatibility information pretty easily accessible with a wizard that can be found here: http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Education-...
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That looks like a torpedo bulb with a candelabra base (the base indicates globe style, it's mislabeled). If the voltage is at least accurate, that 29w should be a 40W incandescent equivalent, which is how many manufacturers often indicate wattage on packaging. They also make LED versions of virtually every bulb nowadays if you wanted to get an even more ...
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Consider: A tungsten bulb typically has a 2000 hour life span. A 200 watt bulb will use 400 kWh of electricity in it's life span. If you are at a typical 12c/kWh rate that means $48 worth of electricity over it's life, many times the cost of the bulb.
How much are you saving by delaying the replacement?
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Yes. Unless there is a problem with the supply wiring or lampholders, ballasts are the only thing left!
Look at the old ballast and see whether it brings 1 or 2 wires to each lamp end (in most cases, 2 wires). If it's 2 per end, then look for a rapid-start (not instant-start) type ballast that supports the number of tubes you have, and their ...
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Opposite behavior to my troublesome one, but yes, it's likely the ballast, and personally I solved my "would not work in humid/rainy weather" fluorescent light by replacing it with an LED light, rather than replacing its ballast, since it also used odd-sized old bulbs that (themselves, nevermind a ballast) cost considerably more than a new fixture.
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Lutron Diva C.L Dimmer for Dimmable LED, Halogen and Incandescent Bulbs, Single-Pole or 3-Way, DVCL-153P-WH, White – Amazon
See at the bottom right, where it has little pictures : INC / HAL - CFL - LED
The problem is that you have 200 Watt incandescent bulbs, and most dimmers including this one are only good up to 600w. You need some commercial hardware ($$...
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how much money would you be throwing away if you threw out all the 200W globes? is it really worth the effort to try to run a mixture of different lamps off a single dimmer.
LED lamps dim at a different rate to incandescents, LEDs respond to current, incansedcents to power, but incansedcents also change hue as they are adjusted. while LED lamps do not.
...
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Most high voltage LED equivalent bulbs will work fine with a standard incandescent dimmer. Plus, it is fine to mix incandescent and high voltage LED on the same dimmer. The worst that would happen would be the dimming range is abrupt but this can be fixed by replacing the dimmer with a Lutron CL incandescent type dimmer that comes with a range adjuster to ...
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Yes. Screw-in, incandescent replacement LED lights are actually fairly complex peoducts with a lot of smarts. They are not merely "bare LEDs with a limiting resistor" (though low-voltage LED lighting does exist which is this).
The smartness of these bulbs makes them naturally immune to dimming. (they will simply disregard what the dimmer is trying to do)...
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