Outdoor lights with extremely long cable runs
Discussion
I want to light up some long garden paths, walls and trees. I've got a lot of experience with indoor Philips Hue which is great and allows everything to be controlled with Apple HomeKit.
The cost of using Hue outdoor would I think be extreme in this case but I could do it in sections over a few years. To give an idea of scale, some runs are 50m.
Given it's going to be such a huge installation job reliability is a major concern.
Anyone have any experience of alternatives? I'm sort of thinking of doing the long outdoor cable runs with some generic waterproof light fittings. I could then presumably swap out bulbs as and when things fail. Any thoughts would be really appreciated.
The cost of using Hue outdoor would I think be extreme in this case but I could do it in sections over a few years. To give an idea of scale, some runs are 50m.
Given it's going to be such a huge installation job reliability is a major concern.
Anyone have any experience of alternatives? I'm sort of thinking of doing the long outdoor cable runs with some generic waterproof light fittings. I could then presumably swap out bulbs as and when things fail. Any thoughts would be really appreciated.
what do you really need it to do?
I have some outdoor programmable stuff including lights, solar powered, it does what I need and is close enough to what we'd ideally like.
The last few yards of meeting your exact whims may cost disproportionately much.
There's all sorts of stuff you can do for a few quid, like send 30-odd volts up the garden on some cheap cable, then regulate it locally to 12V
Are we talking
floodlights, or a few small leds to show where the path is?
I have some outdoor programmable stuff including lights, solar powered, it does what I need and is close enough to what we'd ideally like.
The last few yards of meeting your exact whims may cost disproportionately much.
There's all sorts of stuff you can do for a few quid, like send 30-odd volts up the garden on some cheap cable, then regulate it locally to 12V
Are we talking
floodlights, or a few small leds to show where the path is?OutInTheShed said:
what do you really need it to do?
I have some outdoor programmable stuff including lights, solar powered, it does what I need and is close enough to what we'd ideally like.
The last few yards of meeting your exact whims may cost disproportionately much.
There's all sorts of stuff you can do for a few quid, like send 30-odd volts up the garden on some cheap cable, then regulate it locally to 12V
Are we talking floodlights, or a few small leds to show where the path is?
Yes that's a good question - there are really 3 things:I have some outdoor programmable stuff including lights, solar powered, it does what I need and is close enough to what we'd ideally like.
The last few yards of meeting your exact whims may cost disproportionately much.
There's all sorts of stuff you can do for a few quid, like send 30-odd volts up the garden on some cheap cable, then regulate it locally to 12V
Are we talking
floodlights, or a few small leds to show where the path is?1) light a couple of very long 30m paths
2) uplight about 20m of tall stone walls
3) floodlight a few tall trees (maybe with some lights in them).
At the moment I have a few Hue outdoor floodlights. The great thing about them is I can control them using HomeKit.
One cheap option is to buy 20m long
floodlights for £50 on Amazon and have them plugged into a HomeKit plug. Costs next to nothing but I'm sure the cheapo lights will fail and I'll have to redo burying wires etc.The thing that is making me pause on this is going through the pain of burying very long lengths of cable, with all the interconnects and lights....and then having it stop working after a few months when cheap stuff fails.
I ran a few hundred metres of SWA around my garden to do a similar thing. Path light feed was buried (under the path) with loops where I wanted lights. I made some path lights out of oak bollards with a IP rated down light attached - much cheaper than buying off the shelf for the quantities I wanted. Connections were made off the SWA into a Wiska box mounted 150mm off the ground.
I decided to go with a 240 system with GU10 led bulbs for flexibility and future proofing. Buying into a low voltage system got expensive by comparison.
Buried a cable for some tree uplights, again connections made off into a Wiska box above ground.
Various shrub/wall up lights around were done with SWA laying on the ground (hidden by the shrubs) with metal boxes for the connections. Even though they are IP rated these took a bit of debugging to get them all watertight.
I bought a mix of expensive uplights where they were visible, and cheaper ones where they weren’t. All the cheaper ones have failed.
Cables come back to a smart lighting system (LightwaveRF) which is great for controlling scenes and schedules.
My advice is: keep all connections above ground, and don’t skimp on quality if you want to install a system and have it reliable.
I had to spend a lot of time debugging a previous half baked installation that came with the house, with a load of connections below ground for various fittings. Half of them were full of water, all of them badly corroded.
I decided to go with a 240 system with GU10 led bulbs for flexibility and future proofing. Buying into a low voltage system got expensive by comparison.
Buried a cable for some tree uplights, again connections made off into a Wiska box above ground.
Various shrub/wall up lights around were done with SWA laying on the ground (hidden by the shrubs) with metal boxes for the connections. Even though they are IP rated these took a bit of debugging to get them all watertight.
I bought a mix of expensive uplights where they were visible, and cheaper ones where they weren’t. All the cheaper ones have failed.
Cables come back to a smart lighting system (LightwaveRF) which is great for controlling scenes and schedules.
My advice is: keep all connections above ground, and don’t skimp on quality if you want to install a system and have it reliable.
I had to spend a lot of time debugging a previous half baked installation that came with the house, with a load of connections below ground for various fittings. Half of them were full of water, all of them badly corroded.
At my last house I installed a simple garden lighting system. About 20 lights for subtle illumination of borders and paths and 4 spots/uplighters for trees.
3 cable runs, the shortest was 40m, the longest 75m.
I'd definitely stay with a 12vAC system, running mains power around a garden is a different game altogether. Armoured cable, buried deep and it won't tolerate any moisture ingress. 12v by contrast you can bury 5-6 inches down easily, you just cut a slot and push it in, and doesn't mind water. Mine would occassionally be under water and worked without issue for the 12 years I was there.
I used some Techmar fixtures, made some myself, bought the generic cable and spliced all the fixtures in which saved a lot of £££.
3 cable runs, the shortest was 40m, the longest 75m.
I'd definitely stay with a 12vAC system, running mains power around a garden is a different game altogether. Armoured cable, buried deep and it won't tolerate any moisture ingress. 12v by contrast you can bury 5-6 inches down easily, you just cut a slot and push it in, and doesn't mind water. Mine would occassionally be under water and worked without issue for the 12 years I was there.
I used some Techmar fixtures, made some myself, bought the generic cable and spliced all the fixtures in which saved a lot of £££.
12V works well and is simple and safe.
MR16 bulb spike lights are about £10 each and use something like a Meross smart external plug to control them, works with Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Other 12vlights like post lights etc are available
Keeping the connections above ground, fixed to a fence etc is a good idea, but I have some that just run behind plants on the garden bed. All my joints are soldered then sealed with self annealing tape. Never really had an issue after I stopped using the cheap plastic boxes with screw terminal blocks inside that came with some.
MR16 bulb spike lights are about £10 each and use something like a Meross smart external plug to control them, works with Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Other 12vlights like post lights etc are available
Keeping the connections above ground, fixed to a fence etc is a good idea, but I have some that just run behind plants on the garden bed. All my joints are soldered then sealed with self annealing tape. Never really had an issue after I stopped using the cheap plastic boxes with screw terminal blocks inside that came with some.
Edited by Byker28i on Monday 20th January 09:14
Many trees in our garden had spots pointing up them when we moved in.
Large cable runs aren't an issue at all - we have lighting running all the way down our drive 'outside' our main property, but we have yet to find a light that can be installed on the ground, point uphill and not fail once covered in damp leaves, snow or whatever.
I just turned the tree lights off. They're probably all knackered now.
Large cable runs aren't an issue at all - we have lighting running all the way down our drive 'outside' our main property, but we have yet to find a light that can be installed on the ground, point uphill and not fail once covered in damp leaves, snow or whatever.
I just turned the tree lights off. They're probably all knackered now.
I just (yesterday) fitted Hue lights to our back garden path, around 25m perhaps a bit more.
Furthermore the Hue hub is in my office which is a further 10m from the start of the run and through a wall, it connected to all the lights and a switch which I have tested even further away from the hub.
The only way in which the set up is not quite perfect is all the lights don't switch on at the same time from the switch, perhaps 0.5 second delay between them, perhaps some of the bulbs are a few network 'hops' from the hub.
I did try some 'hue compatible' bulbs on my garage but they were junk, of the 12 GU10s perhaps 9 would switch on each time and not the same 9. A real life example of buy cheap buy twice.
Ben
Furthermore the Hue hub is in my office which is a further 10m from the start of the run and through a wall, it connected to all the lights and a switch which I have tested even further away from the hub.
The only way in which the set up is not quite perfect is all the lights don't switch on at the same time from the switch, perhaps 0.5 second delay between them, perhaps some of the bulbs are a few network 'hops' from the hub.
I did try some 'hue compatible' bulbs on my garage but they were junk, of the 12 GU10s perhaps 9 would switch on each time and not the same 9. A real life example of buy cheap buy twice.
Ben
Baldchap said:
Many trees in our garden had spots pointing up them when we moved in.
Large cable runs aren't an issue at all - we have lighting running all the way down our drive 'outside' our main property, but we have yet to find a light that can be installed on the ground, point uphill and not fail once covered in damp leaves, snow or whatever.
I just turned the tree lights off. They're probably all knackered now.
Outdoor spike lights, mains or 12v? Never had a problem other than dogs knocking them over.Large cable runs aren't an issue at all - we have lighting running all the way down our drive 'outside' our main property, but we have yet to find a light that can be installed on the ground, point uphill and not fail once covered in damp leaves, snow or whatever.
I just turned the tree lights off. They're probably all knackered now.
Boy those Phillips Hue outdoor lights are expensive
https://www.screwfix.com/p/philips-hue-lily-outdoo...
Byker28i said:
Outdoor spike lights, mains or 12v? Never had a problem other than dogs knocking them over.
Boy those Phillips Hue outdoor lights are expensive
https://www.screwfix.com/p/philips-hue-lily-outdoo...
Yes, they are mental money. Luckily a normal Hue bulb will work in almost any other outdoor light fitting albeit Hue bulbs are also mental moneyBoy those Phillips Hue outdoor lights are expensive
https://www.screwfix.com/p/philips-hue-lily-outdoo...
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