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biglights
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Anon

Help finding 120v led lights for outdoor lighting

Okay so pretty much what I'm trying to find / do is use LED light bars like pictured to light up the front of my house / back yard. I can get the small light bar pictured for under $13 each... 2 in my parking lot and 6 in my rear yard would provide PLENTY of light, problem is... they are 12-24volt DC lights.

I'm looking for something close in cost that would be 120v ac. I also like the light housing setup, I plan to mount these below the gutters 3 stories up and due to overhangs and the like on lower floors having something that is directional like that works better than a light that shines straight down (as it would be hitting mostly a roof).

Now since I have been unable to find anything running on 120vac my first thought as I'm more of a computer fixing person was, 12v computer power supply wired up to supply power for these lights.

Now I know there would be all kinds of codes to follow... I myself really am not too worried, its 12v dc (so low voltage) I will likely run everything outside in conduit, and the neighbor here rebuilt his whole house pretty much with out 1 permit so. As long as it is safe, I do not care about getting it to pass any sort of inspection.

What I'm looking for is, a better plan to power these things (no real fixtures or wiring exist, I have a 85 watt CFL in the only two fixtures already wired in) or someone who has found something similar in the 120vac power. Am I crazy or what?

Thanks.

nightdesigns
Gone missing, back soon
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join:2002-05-31
AZ

2 recommendations

nightdesigns

Premium Member

If you go with 12v, how about a standard12v landscape lighting transformer setup. No conduit needed.

tschmidt
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Milford, NH
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I'm doing something similar with rectangular 10W LED flood lights and PIR sensors I purchased on eBay. I need some custom control logic so I'm using a 12V DC power supply for the system. Just need to pick a supply that has a high enough current rating for the number of lights you plan to use.

»www.mpja.com/12-Volt-Pow ··· cts/537/
»www.mpja.com/15-Volt-Pow ··· cts/538/

The lights I have are AC/DC so that means they have a built in full wave bridge to convert AC to DC. The bridge drops a couple of volts across the diodes. LEDs are driven by a constant current module, so in an ideal world the exact input voltage does not matter. However: depending on how the LED module is wired, there may not be enough supply voltage to deliver full power. For example the LED modules in mine are wired in a 3x3 configuration. 3 LED chips in series and three series strings in parallel. The forward voltage drop of the LED module about 10-11 volts so powering them from 12V DC will reduce maximum output a little. If you go the DC route may want to increase supply voltage a little.

The other thing you need to consider is voltage drop if wire runs are long.

Using a 12V AC transformer as nightdesigns See Profile posted will probably be a simpler solution and lights should be a little brighter.

/tom

stevek1949
We're not in Kansas anymore
Premium Member
join:2002-11-13
Virginia Beach, VA

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Just a quick search turned up these:

»www.lithonia.com/commerc ··· ght.html

garys_2k
Premium Member
join:2004-05-07
Farmington, MI

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Funny you ask, because I was thinking of installing some outdoor lights with low voltage wiring to avoid the need for the "more elaborate" requirements with 120 volt.

Why do you want to go the other way?

Msradell
Premium Member
join:2008-12-25
Louisville, KY

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said by biglights :

Okay so pretty much what I'm trying to find / do is use LED light bars like pictured to light up the front of my house / back yard. I can get the small light bar pictured for under $13 each... 2 in my parking lot and 6 in my rear yard would provide PLENTY of light, problem is... they are 12-24volt DC lights.

I'm not sure where to get some of you solve your problem but could you sure where you found a source for the lights you found that are 12 V?

biglights
@optonline.net

biglights

Anon

I never thought about the landscape lighting transformer... I always thought they be like low power, holy crap I've seen 600 watt ones...

tschmidt See Profile Could you link the ac/dc lights you have found?

stevek1949 See Profile those look pretty cool seem to be about $80 each I'll have to look into them might be able to use a few in a few spots... $13 vs $80 big difference...

garys_2k See Profile I was looking to go 120 just to make it easier (as I said I really did not think about 12volt transformers being large enough to power 6 18 watt lights), as I said, as long as it was safe I really had no worries about the town and 120volt

Msradell See Profile Um sorry I'm not 100% sure what your asking I think it is where did I find these lights? You can get a good deal at Light Bar Direct on amazon. I have bought some other led lights from online led store.com... they came with water proof plugs, thicker leads, etc but were also more expensive, I can get them a little cheaper but still the prices both of the places have for the products are very good.

We were playing around with one tonight hooked up to a jumper pack (so 12v battery source) I blinded myself twice and my neighbor like 5 times lol. I can't wait to see what these 280 watt light bars look like.

John Galt6
Forward, March
Premium Member
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp

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»www.google.com/search?q= ··· &bih=649

tschmidt
MVM
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Milford, NH
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Got mine on eBay, most of the 12V ones are limited to 10 watts, which is bright enough for my purposes. Purchased ones with and without a PIR motion sensor.

Here is search result for "12v PIR light" Never ran across the nice wide ones you are using.

»www.ebay.com/sch/i.html? ··· from=R40

Given the rather casual way Chinese manufactures treat regulatory compliance I'd be very reluctant to use any that are mains powered.

/tom