Low Voltage transformers and Copper landscape lights
Low voltage transformers are very crucial in steeping down your voltage. They can step down your current voltage supply from 120 volts to 12 volts or even 24 volts. This is very important for outdoor or exterior landscape lighting.
However, it is important to consider several factors before purchasing your low voltage transformers for your landscape lighting. They include the following:
- Know that your transformer will be part of your family's devices. Therefore, it should be secure and safe to be used by all family members without posing any risk
- Know the voltage of your copper landscape lights. Therefore, you need to make a decision regarding power rating and voltage of the bulbs you will be using. Thus, in case your bulbs have a power rating of 12 volts with each at 35 watts then you need 140watts power supply of 12VAC.
- Copper landscape lights may use alternate current to run. This implies that you may need low voltage transformers to convert your local voltage. Depending on where you get your power supply from, you will need to convert 120, 220 or 240 volts to 12VAC.
- It is always advisable to plan for a little bit more capacity for your power supply. This is because it is never 100 percent certain that the power supply will always be correct. You can also not be sure that your 35 watts copper landscape lights won't be replaced by someone by mistake with the ones of 50 watts. This may results to overloading of your low voltage transformers. Therefore, to be on the safe side, the transformer should be able to enable you double the capacity to 280watts.
These transformers can be heavy and large. This is because the conventional ones consist of two set of wires and an iron core. They also contain an electrical device that allows their size to be substantially smaller. Basically, this electrical device called the inverter and the small transformer are what makes this low voltage device.
Low voltage transformers play a very important role in the installation of low voltage systems. This is because they enable systems such as low voltage copper landscape lights systems connect and run on a current of 12 volts without risk of any harm. They have a light wiring and can easily be buried or set on the ground and perform effectively.
However, it is very important to ensure that your transformers match your combined wattage of the lighting system so that they can supply power and leave a surplus of about 25%.
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