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When Outdoor Lights Are Anything But..


LondonRascal

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It had taken me two attempts to get the things delivered to me, but today I was duly united with my order - 33' of glorious LED multi function outdoor lights.

I was then surprised that there was no transformer as per the description to provide a safe 31v DC voltage to the lights. Not only that but the cable used from the mains plug is single insulated 'bell wire' stuff, that has just 40cm of wire between mains plug and controller.  The controller has stamped on it 'IP44' which is funny, since the cables that lead into the thing are through several holes all of which have no seal.

It is my belief having opened up the controller that the LED'S are wired in series at mains voltage with just a resistor at each LED bulb, and a smoothing capacitor in the controller. 

These were delivered by a UK company (though made in China) using Amazon Prime so it surprises me the description and the end result are so far removed from each other.  I've duly written a review warning others on the site.  It is hard to find a good length of LED lights that have some kind of diffuser over the bulbs - such as these lights have, or even larger 'bulb' type sets.

So even with the best of intentions things can not go as you might plan!

Lights 1.jpg

Controller Inside.jpg

Controller - no waterproof sealing.jpg

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I have stopped buying cheap lights off of online sites  ... Had some bad experiences..  if I buy any now I go for a make called premier there are very good ., Also B&M bargains very good lights this year.. I've bought 2 sets of Ever Ready mains lights they are waterproof from the rain wind proof and frost proof..and there working fine so I'm going to buy a spare set in the sale ...

IMG_0954.PNG

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These have now had their time in my hands, having unraveled them and I find one of the wires has popped out one of the LEDs and that would not be at a safe voltage, but it got better as at the very end is a bare live and neutral connection for you to plug additional lengths of lights in and daisy chain them. It was not shielded at all, easy to stick your finger in.

Still, easy return print off label and take to post office or book a collection by courier.

Now I need to find something else might be off to B&M tomorrow..

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I always visit B&Q when they have their lights on sale, never pa more than 25% of the original price and now own more lights than you can shake a stick at.a lot of them are outdoor lights in name only as they say the controller and socket need to be indoors but if either needs to be outdoors to reach they are made safe by the simple provision of placing those parts within the confines of a plastic bag, securely taped and set so the opening is at the bottom (double bagged if you are really fussy)

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1 hour ago, LondonRascal said:

These have now had their time in my hands, having unraveled them and I find one of the wires has popped out one of the LEDs and that would not be at a safe voltage, but it got better as at the very end is a bare live and neutral connection for you to plug additional lengths of lights in and daisy chain them. It was not shielded at all, easy to stick your finger in.

Still, easy return print off label and take to post office or book a collection by courier.

Now I need to find something else might be off to B&M tomorrow..

From the labelling, it implies double insulated so there must be other components in what appears to be the plug top, the capacitor in the control unit is 16 volts there are 4 diodes that probably make up a rectifier, I would guess, and only guess, that the voltage out of the plug is less than 8 volts ac, giving 12 volts DC for the led's so there will be several strings each of a few led's and one resistor to limit current per string.

The long thin device might be a a control circuit that enables various flashing effects, selected by the single push button switch.

Please check the voltage that is going to other optional sets of lights and you should find it is not mains voltage. 

 

If you can open the plug top, please post a picture. 

 

Hope it helps. 

 

CAUTION ... There are a lot of imported lights that have a CE mark, because the UK and Europe require it, BUT it should mean that the unit has undergone various tests for safety. There should be a "Declaration of Conformity to various EN standards, many units have never been tested so proceed with caution.

Richard

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