minimoke:sir1963:Ahh - that makes sense at the circuit breaker end.minimoke: Thanks everyone. I'm digesting all this information.
What I'm also not understanding is why does the transformer or my circuit board not trip. If a tail is failing and gets hot enough to melt the insulation I would have thought the fuse at the circuit board would have gone - isn't this what they are supposed to do? And how is it a transformer lets the wire get so hot. I'd have thought it would trip and then cool down and restart rather than just totally blowing.
I've got a dozen or so of these things sitting in my roof possibly cooking away!
Good thought, but wrong....sort of.
If you have a 5A fuse you would need to draw over 3000W for hours before the fuse blew
If you have a 10A fuse you would need to draw over 6000W for hours before the fuse blew.
So, if one of your light fittings shorted out here is a high chance that the resistance of the copper winding in the transformer would limit
the power drawn to less than this, however this is more than enough to cause a fire.
This is one of the reasons I hate low voltage lighting.
Personally I believe if you are going to use low voltage lighting its worth having a decent SMPS and running ALL the lights off it
But the transformer has all these flash supposed settings so I wonder why these don't work.
On the transformer it says the LED glows:
- "ON" for normal operation.
- OFF - its out of order check mains power (nothing about checking tails / bulbs or that it is rooted!!)
- Slow flashing: Short circuit condition (but two melted wires touching doesn't trip it!)
- Rapid flashing: Transformer overload (its in the roof - who sees this before it blows!)
a 100w bulb handing from a wire in the middle of the ceiling seems a whole lot simpler!
Go and buy an LED lamp then.
1. It will save you power
2. Its low wattage will also men your wiring will not cook its self
3. The life expectancy of the lamp is a damn sight longer