Garden Lights (UK)

Devices & Integrations Device Ideas
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28

Done some more thinking and now potentially looking at 5 outdoor spotlights as uplighters around the perimeter of the garden, a couple of which would uplight trees. Don’t need to be RGB. Also a rope light to go along a path.

As I said in my post above, I have an outdoor plug socket I can power the lights with. To uplight the trees I think I’d need more than 4W, maybe 15 or 20 so with 5 lights I might be looking at 100W total load. Will the plug socket be able to handle that? And would I still use the RGB controller for control of the lights or is there another more suitable module?

29

I use a 4W spotlight focused in a tree. Its sufficient enough for my needs. 2 bulbs basically lights up the whole back garden fence area to provide a clear view from bedrooms.

Regards,
Vikas

30

Thanks - good to know. Out of interest, how big are the trees? The two I’m wanting to uplight are tall but don’t spread very wide…

31

I would say about 8-10 metres high.

You may need a floodlight if you need proper illumination as done for buildings.

32

Ah ok. To be honest I’m not looking for full illumination of the tree or anything. Guess what I am trying to avoid is a light that is too dim to even uplight the bottom section. I just don’t have an idea of what is bright and what isn’t for this type of thing.

33

I’ve now got a better grasp of how the lights will be wired having discussed with an electrician. He will install a fused spur for the spike lights and I will ensure cable is run from the location of the spur to the first light and then daisy chained to all the other locations. He will do a similar thing for a strip light along the path so I can turn that on and off separately to the spike lights.

So I’m guessing I can simply wire a Fibaro relay or Single Switch 2 to the spur?

34

Not sure I understand, but power from the led driver will go into the fibaro as well as led.

35

Sorry so I expect to have two switches, one for the spike lights around the garden and one for a strip LED light along my path. The transformer for the strip will need to go in a weatherproof box and so in that same box I think I can put the Fibaro module connected to the transformer. For the garden lights, I’m not sure where I’ll put the Fibaro module…

36

Fibaro should be in a weatherproof tiny box, within range of your Zwave network. You may need to you a Zwave. range extender.

I would suggest you first make the setup work inside home before wiring everything, when its becomes difficult to troubleshoot.

37

OK…I definitely don’t expect to have range issues as there is a Dimmer 2 behind a wall switch inside my house just on the other side of the same wall the transformer will be on. There are also Fibaro modules wired inside my house before and after where the transformer will be outside so I shouldn’t really have range issues.

My strip light will be just under 20 metres long so I just need to check if a Fibaro module can be wired to that length of strip as I’ll likely need a higher power transformer for that length of strip.