re: Outdoor lighting.

Ok I've immersed myself in this nonsense like nothing else all day and night.

Here's a few things I've found:

- the 200 watt ring 'smart transformer' @ $99 seems like the ideal transformer to buy and of course amazon/ring's customer support is legendary so why save $10 buying a dumb/timer transformer?



- for 20+ lights that i'm planning the 12 gauge wire is the way to go. i wouldn't go with anything higher especially if you may want to add to your lighting later on.

- waterproofing is key. the weak link once you've calculated the # of lights, watts & distance..is poor connections. there are several connectors but important to buy the type that has the die-electric grease/gel and seals up. if you're connecting 20 lights, that is 40 potential points of failure (2 connectors per light) so pay a little extra and get good connectors. use something like this:



- its a bit of an art form but i'm getting a general feel of how i can 'paint' my house w/ a combination of spotlights, pathway lights and tree lights. looks like i have to figure out whether to screw a light into the trunk of the tree, put several floods around it or even mount a spotlight in the middle of the trunk pointing up. the trees will take the most amount of thought.

- i'm running 200-300ft of trenches so that $100 wilton trenching spade is a no-brainer. i would pay twice that amount.



- looks like i can buy a diamond blade for my circular saw and cut across one of my driveway expansion joints to cross over. seems like a no-brainer to cut across where there's already a potential gap.

in typical CAD fashion this will probably crash and burn but i'm pretty excited so far. i feel better about maintaining & replacing failed lights now that i know its not magic to connect them.

I did it myself. It honestly wasn't hard to do. Just buy a large spool of the LV wiring and the lights that you need with a large enough power supply. If you need to run it under a sidewalk, there's a very simple tool that allows you to run PVC under your sidewalk and connect a hose to it to tunnel it through.

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looks like i can buy a diamond blade for my circular saw and cut across one of my driveway expansion joints to cross over. seems like a no-brainer to cut across where there's already a potential gap

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There was a great thread here recently on how to tunnel a driveway. I would do that and run some conduit before I sawed my concrete.

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I’m excited for you. I remember you talking about this months ago.

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my bathroom redo and repairing rotten deck boards has gotten in the way of this project. i haven't forgetten it though!

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Does each transformer only run one wire? I was kind of hoping I could run one left and right out if it. But I’ll probably need 2 anyway.

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i think you would just twist-tie 2 or 3 wires together and shove that shite into the transformer opening. its stranded wire and i saw a Lowes video where the woman twisted 4 12g wires together and was able to shove the whole thing into the transformer connector. i'll look for that video.

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There was a great thread here recently on how to tunnel a driveway. I would do that and run some conduit before I sawed my concrete.

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2 things:

1. i live in limestone TN so there's more rock under my driveway than dirt. going under it would be a huge pain.

2. i'm cutting where the expansion joint is so its already potentially open enough to fish a wire in there; i would just be using the saw to make sure the opening is wide enough.

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my biggest disappointment is the lack of low voltage post lights.

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I bought some solar landscape lights at Sam's Club years ago that worked really well and used AA lithium batteries. The only problem was they were a weird voltage for AA batteries (not the normal 1.5V) and cost close to $5 each to replace. You will need to replace the batteries every couple of years or more.

I pointed that out earlier in the thread. It's like $19.

Ahh, didn't even read that page. Just went through it. Looks like Amazon has another roll of wire for $57 now if no one noticed yet.

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VOLT Brand Lighting - DIY

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I'm intrigued by the kit but it's very expensive for the number of lights I plan to install. The starter kit at $500 only comes with 3 pathway lights and 6 floods. I'll need to spend another $500+ in expansion kits at least to cover what I want.

Too high for me although I do like the lever connectors. I don't mind to fuss with a little gel and stripping cables. It's not that much work.

I like the little sleeve that you can adjust on the well lights to reduce glare too. Definitely noted that so any lights I buy I'm going to look for that feature.

eta i should clarify: my current budget is $1,000 for this project (pending the sale of a few of those nest cameras I have left!) but for that amount i expect to get 15-20 lights, the wiring, the waterproof connectors, that trenching tool ($129 alone) and the Ring smart transformer so i won't have to depend on a photo cell or mechanical timer.

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If anything the Ring will be more work b/c you will have to change the time for different times of the year w/ the sun set/rise times changing.

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it has sunrise/sunset offset based on your location like all my smart lights do.