electrical wiring

[LvR]

Don't know - not following that at all.

Easy enough to prove if it is the case though - remove one luminary and if the other dies you know its in series..................

[MultimediaMan]

Work it out... whichever device has the lowest wattage has the highest resistance... effectively making the higher wattage, lower resistance load a "conductor". If the differences are too great, one will light and the other will not.

Your proof is correct.

[LvR]

Still cannot see how the things are in series - no way for a halogen to get enough power to light up if they were in series, and since we know the halogen does light up, they cannot be in series.

[VJ]

I also don't think they are in series. If the switch is on, and I remove one lamp, the other one stays on. This would not be the case in series.
The issue is if the switch is off, where a led works faintly if there is either no other lamp in the circuit, or if the other lamp is a led.

[VJ]

Ok, renovations are set to start next week...

The led problem will be solved by installing all-pole actuators near the light source (e.g. in the junction box or in the fake ceiling), and controlling it through a wireless switch.

I will also change the fitting in 21 spots from Gx5.3 to GU10. The Gx5.3 is quite unusual as it is for 230 V halogen lamps (normally Gx5.3 is used for 12V lamps). I can't find the lamps anywhere but online, and I would like to replace them all with led lamps (and they don't exist in Gx5.3 at 230V). Luckily, the fittings are independent of the bulb holder, so while a bit of work it is nothing out of the ordinary. Main reason to switch to leds is the heat (imagine 21x 50W spots in a single room). It will be expensive in lightbulbs, but IMO well worth it.

Quite excited to get started on it all....

[Umfriend]

Show me LEDs that get anywhere near 50W halogen equivalent. 35W for that matter.

[Tjalfe]

find a demo of some latest generation Cree LED's.. http://www.cree.com/ , I think their brightness may surprise you. Unfortunately finding a reseller for these seems harder, as most stores just carries the cheap crap from years ago

edit there is a picture here:

http://mtg.cree.com/#optimized

[VJ]

These Philips come very close to 35W halogen:

http://www.ecat.lighting.philips.com/l/catalog/catalog.jsp?userLanguage=en&userCountry=aa&catalogType=LP_PROF_ATG&_dyncharset=UTF-8&categoryid=LP_CF_MSLEDSMV_EU_FA_AA_LP_PROF_ATG&productid=929000161904_EU_AA_LP_PROF_ATG&title=MASTER%20LEDspotMV%207-35W%20GU10%202700K%2025D&ctn=929000161904_EU

but they arez very expensive.

The thing is: I don't need the amount of light 50W or even 35W halogen gives; there are enough of them. The previous owners just put all 50W, but a lot of them are broken. The 21 lights are in 2 circuits, and just one of them gives enough light; both circuits with less powerful lamps should be ok.

[LvR]

Show me LEDs that get anywhere near 50W halogen equivalent. 35W for that matter.

Depends on the application and the required surface/area to be illuminated - I can show you a horde of LEDs able to outperform the avg halogen in spot applications (typically what this will turn out to be I guess)

[VJ]

To describe the situation: it is a rectangular room (slightly bigger than 5m x 3.5m), with windows along a long edge (all the length, which is a south-south-east side). Along the other walls, the ceiling is slightly lower (this lowered part is approx. 20 cm wide), and there are built in spot lights in there. They are regularly spaced along the 3 walls, yielding a spacing between halogens of less than 30 cm.
There are 2 circuits, wired to have alternating lights (e.g. one lights the "even" spots, the other the "odd" spots). As some lamps are broken, even with 5 spots on it is more than bright enough (but the light should be better distributed). But having half the lights on can make it quite warm in the apartment, and this is without heating and only 12°C ambient outside temperature.

So I don't really think I have a choice: if I keep the lights, they should be leds.
Oh, and the light fittings indicate a max of 35 W, but the previous people put in 50 W in all of them... So that in its own is reason to replace the bulbs...

[VJ]

It keeps getting better and better...

The previous owners drilled in a wall and have hit an electrical cable (phase)... but they never fixed it: the just removed the screw and left the unexposed live cable in the wall, covered by a wooden plank.
When removing the frame of the fusebox, it is visible there has been a short circuit in the past: there are traces of charred wall and molten plastic, as well as the old cable.
A new problem also surfaced now in the living room: if I switch on the lights on one circuit, some lights only light up fairly dim. If I then switch on the other circuit, some lights go brighter while others go out. I have no idea how to wire something like that, but it may be related to the exposed wire.

The electrician will come and check the cabling all over the apartment, and we will replace everything that is needs to be replaced. I have a feeling there will be more surprises... Basically, I'm now preparing for the fact that the corridor will have to be completely redone.

[VJ]

First results are in... Apartment has a mixture of old aluminum wires and more modern copper ones. The light socket where the led is plugged in that shows the issue shows 42V when switched OFF!

The electrician literally said that for him "only kitchen and bathroom matters as they need to be safe. F*ck the rest". He seemed very unwilling to replace the entire cabling: "it probably is not necessary" and "there will be a mess". The apartment already is a mess (3 rooms have floor removed and walls that need to be smoothed to be painted; kitchen and bathroom are scheduled for renovation), but there is virtually no furniture: this needs to be done now rather than later. He also did not bother to even measure the other cables or even check where they go in the wall. He only was concerned with the kitchen, and while checking there he blew the main fuse of the apartment. This is a 40 year old screw-in fuse, so he then had to look for a replacement. I noticed in the main fuse box that other apartments had more modern fuses, and when I suggested to also replace the main one, he replied "You want to replace that? Why? It should be ok".
It basically felt like he did not care about it all (just kitchen), and did not want too much work on his hands. He also was quite careless in handling things (pulling sockets out of the wall without unscrewing, thus damaging the wall and making refitting it difficult - this is ok for walls that need to be redone, but he did the same on a wooden panel) and nearly electrocuted himself on 2 occasions... The concept of "ethernet" cable was totally alien to him... even when I tried with Cat5e or Cat6, computer network...

So basically I'm now looking for a new electrician...

[Chucky Cheese]

Cost Benefit Analysis

That guy sound dangerous...what about weighing the cost of removing all the plaster board to expose the framing(...thus the wiring) and relace it with what you want back to the point where you want and then put up new drywall board. I don't know about construction methods in Europe so I am just thinking out loud.

I know it would be a lot of work but how big is your flat? Not every wall would have to be done I'm guessing. Plus you could run the extra communication stuff where and how you want that would make things nice if you wanted at that time.

[VJ]

There is no point in cost-benefit analysis: it has to be done. I'm now at the point where I switch off all the fuses when I'm out or going to sleep. The current state of the wiring brought me to this: mix of aluminum and copper wires, outlet box with damaged outlets fixed to a metal waterpipe (this was how the power in the kitchen was distributed!), 42 V on a switched off light socket, use of earth wire (colour) as phase, and to top it off burnmarks around the fusebox (which - judging by the signs - happend AFTER the previous renovation and probably explains why there is a new fusebox, but no new cabling).

There is no plasterboard: the walls are concrete or brick (depending which wall), covered by plaster and painted. Putting new cables implies putting them in the walls (inside tubes - current wiring is just embedded in the plaster). The plaster on some places crumbles easily. The good thing is there are fake ceilings in most rooms, so perhaps that could be used. I will probably have to destroy the pattern that was made in the plaster in the corridor (irregular wide vertical lines), as this will be nearly impossible to fix (but it collects dirt; so maybe it is better to remove it anyway).

Given the fact that all rooms are being renovated or will be renovated, the biggest problem might be the fact that the fake ceiling will have to be opened up (this was not planned in any of the rooms). But this is plasterboard, so it should not be too much of an issue.

And as you say, I can then have the whole wiring as I want. So I will have to take advantage of this and think what else I need.

[Chucky Cheese]

Planning and structure

I know when I had this house built in 2005 I got me a copy of the floor plan and "story boarded" the communication structure and additional power recepticles that I wanted to add. I was not allowed to modify what came with the house but I was allowed to add. I basically added 12 faceplates that had cable(RG6 quad shield), phone(CAT5e) and Data(CAT 6) on one face plate and all ran back to a low voltage wire cabinet I installed in the basement.

Similar planning for your situation will make things flow easier.

Good Luck!