Hello,
I have a problem that just began. I have a line of landscape light installed around my house. Last night I was out and noticed that the lights at the front of the house were out . I went to check on the photo electric cell and transformer and noticed that the light at the back of the house were lit. All these lights are on the same power line and transformer. On closer inspection I noticed that the lights were bright close to the transformer and getting dimmer down the line, and the ones at the end were unlit. Strange. These light have been around my house for about seven years. I thought that the transformer was bad. Today I went and installed a new transformer. Guess what? Same thing. The lights close to the transformer are bright and the ones farther down the line are dimming until they go out. Any idea as what is up? Do I have bigger problems with my electrical power?
Any help would be great.
Thanks,
Bruno

 

What you are seeing is called voltage drop. The voltage decreases as you get further away from the transformer. This is due to losses within the cables from resistance.

 

Hello,
Thanks for the reply. Does this voltage drop happen suddenly?
Is it due to some other equpiment failure besides the transformer?? these lights have been operating perfectly for about seven years. Nice and bright until last night. Is there a remedy for this? Thanks.
Bruno

 

Most common cuprit with low voltage luminare system is bad connection or splices.

Unless you got one of the critter been eating on the wires it do happend from time to time.

check where the first dimmed luminaire to see if the connecton is bad { that where I will start and work it way down }

I know you will say " oh shoot " but you have do some digging and follow the cable from the luminarie and see where it is.

Sorta like a hide and seek game if you get my drift you have to check each one to make sure you got good connection sometime you will get lucky you get the first one.

Majorty of low voltage wire are not buried very deep so you should not have much issue to find it.

Merci,Marc

 

Hello French,
You are a genius. I came home from work this evening (2:30 A.M). The no landscape lights staring me in the face. I have to let the dog out anyway, so I grab my flashlight and start to dig around the wires in my slacks and polo shirt, with the Yorkie looking at me weird. I check the first splice. Nice and tight. I check the second splice at the end and whoa and behold!!! it is loose. I tighten it up up and vallah!!! I have bright lights again!! Thank you sir for steering me in the right direction.
Your help is appreciated.

 

Wow.,, That good to know and thanks for letting us know how it come out on the repairs.

But once you start working on them other luminaire may go out later on the time so kinda plotted out with your paper or something so you know where it run in case next time it go out again.

Merci,Marc