I just found out my weekend aeration has gone wrong, the machine must have cut my landscape lighting wire somewhere, as the whole backyard has no light now.

Anyone has similar experience here? There are 20+ lights all over my backyard and I have no clue how can I locate the broken wire, anything I can do here?

 

I assume this is low voltage lighting? Is there a fuse in the system and is it blown?

First, make sure your power supply is getting power and is working (sending power out to the lights).

If none of the lights are working then it may be in the wire leading out to the lights. So, I'd start tracing the wire where it leaves the house and inspect the wire out to the first light... if you can. Look closely where it enters or exits the ground as the wire might be buried more shallow.

Another way is to unhook the existing wiring from your power supply. Hook up another long wire to the power supply then take the other end out to the lights and connect it. Which lights illuminate will give you a clue to the problem's location. Then by connecting the test wire to different locations around the yard you can narrow down the problem area.

 

If the wiring was that shallow.... it must be low voltage. Easy to splice low voltage wiring.

Are there any lights still working..... if yes..... you are probably looking for a break from the last working one to the closest dead one. It would extremely easy finding the break with a metal detector. The power is AC and the detector will hum loudly up to the cut point.

 

Thanks guys, yes, it is low voltage, all the lights are out.

I just got a chance to dig out some wires, I picked two lights which are very close to the power source and on the opposite side of the lawn, removed the two wire lugs on both lights and used a new 16 gauge wire to splice them up, turned on the switch, and it did not work...

Light1 has 2 wires under each wire lug, light 2 has 3 wires under each lug, i was wondering why there are 3 wires?

Also there are some really stick glue like stuff when I removed the wire lugs, could that be a problem?

 

The "glue" is a grease used to waterproof the electrical connections.

 

Most transformers have a circuit breaker on them to handle shorts. During the aeration process, it could have created a short and tripped the breaker. Most are pop-out breakers, you press them back in to reset.

I would disconnect all the wires from the transformer (Mark them first so you can replace them in the same spots) and try one fixture or a multimeter to confirm you're getting voltage out of the transformer.
Then start testing. Unfortunately it might be a slow process if you have more than one break or short in the system.

Where there are 3 wires, it might be branching off in two directions to other lights. Sort of a Y connection.

 

thanks! I have finally solved the problem!