Hello all....Ive been lurking but busy nursing our beloved 9 y o german shepherd, Wulfie, who just passed after a courageous 2 year war with cancer. He is the best and we miss him dearly.
Anyway, I'm getting going with a project of supplying electricity to the pond and want to do something nice for lighting, as well as have power available interspersed around the pond. I am bringing 220vac to a sub panel at the shore where the dock is, and want to continue the lighting and power at least half way, maybe all the way around the approx 1.5 acre area of the pond. The pond is in an open 10 acre field.
I would like ideas and sources if possible. Such as how far apart for lighting, whether low to ground or high, or both etc. I am running 10 gauge to the sub panel from the main about 40 feet. I know that to even go 1/4 of the way around is taxing for smaller wire.
All info is welcome and appreciated. Rick
PondBoss magazine subscriber Don't text while driving!
I own and operate an LED lighting company. I would be interested in sending in the requirements needed to be a vender but I am the technical director and not part of the marketing. I will for free help anyone with technical questions and operation of any LED array or system. I will not drop names.
Most important is to ask how long the LED company has been in business. If they are only a few 2-3 years old may want to look for another company. We have been doing this for over 10years now and still learning. Second most important thing is to make sure the LED light sees constant current if low voltage and if not make sure the AC units are surge protectant. Good LED lights are now 135 lumen per watt with a very stable voltage. When the poor old grid system has spikes or dips in voltage most can take it but the 60hz take a quick spike/dip lights are dust.
12 or 24 DC volts is the way to light up these ponds hands down. You can run all the solar you want and DC will travel as far or farther than AC. Low load will keep your amperage down and with low voltage the risk of a shock is much less. Stick to the strength in numbers LED lights. Avoid the lights with large aluminum heat sinks. These lights are not capped and will over clock. Stay away from the LED lights that have 1 watt LEDs. These lights are narrow beam 25-45* and are the most inefficient on the market.
You do not need to break the bank on LED. Trust me on this, good cheap LED can be had. The best to use would be pot lights Par20 or Par30 in LED with a standard pig tail just placed into a 12-18" chunk of black PVC drain pipe. You can adjust the beam width just by moving the bulb in and out of the pipe. You will not get indirect light shooting where you do not want it to be. The LED is like a laser beam and hard to control. The design of a pot light is one of the best light designs to make LED. You have one direction you want the light to go and a nice flat surface to mount your chips. Most efficient LED on the market right now is the 3528.
Just trench in some Cat5 and you will have five different circuits in one wire. Just trench it in like phone wire pull up a loop where you want your lights... patch in at the loops. A 3 or 4 watt par20 or par30 should give you equal light of a 50-60 watt light and give you tones of light.
Cheers Don.
Last edited by DonoBBD; 04/05/1302:36 PM. Reason: spell check tee he he
FR Great advice above. We are in the process of finishing up a hospital job in Lexington, Ky. that utilized about 30 percent LED lights even on the 30' poles for the parking lot. I was very impressed with the amount of light from the pole lights. That being said it is a very bright light. In other words not a real warm type of light. Just a cosideration. Also dont skimp on your wire size to your panel you may want to add aeration or who knows what else in the future. And feed "Everything" with GFCI. Good luck.
FR Great advice above. We are in the process of finishing up a hospital job in Lexington, Ky. that utilized about 30 percent LED lights even on the 30' poles for the parking lot. I was very impressed with the amount of light from the pole lights. That being said it is a very bright light. In other words not a real warm type of light. Just a cosideration. Also dont skimp on your wire size to your panel you may want to add aeration or who knows what else in the future. And feed "Everything" with GFCI. Good luck.
Ah see poor control of the LED manufacturing will give you that high K value blue LED look. Higher than the 5500K you step out of the visible light spectrum for the human eye and it starts to become shadowy. You lean to much on the rod part of the eye for night vision. Too blue like the new HD headlights for cars can damage the night vision of the human eye.
AGAIN not selling product nor will I drop a name.
This house would have used 4950 watts of conventional lighting. It is done with 305 watts of LED. Good LED manufactures can make the nice warm white and still be bright.
Don, Nice looking pictures. definate difference there. Getting ready to build a log cabin in the next couple of years can you PM me some info? Dont wanna highjack this thread. Thanks
Could you please elaborate on using pot lights with drain pipe? I assume you mean the 4" corrugated type? Are you saying too aim the bulb at the sky? That would allow rain to enter the socket? Or it seems that way to me?
Also are you saying i can power a 3 or 4 watt Led over cat5 and even thru several hundred feet of it? Thank you. Rick
PondBoss magazine subscriber Don't text while driving!
Could you please elaborate on using pot lights with drain pipe? I assume you mean the 4" corrugated type? Are you saying too aim the bulb at the sky? That would allow rain to enter the socket? Or it seems that way to me?
Also are you saying i can power a 3 or 4 watt Led over cat5 and even thru several hundred feet of it? Thank you. Rick
Yes corrugated drain pipe. If you put two rods through the pipe the light bulb will hang on it. You point these like projectors to light up your trees or rocks. You will not get light to shoot sideways when they are in the pipe so you can't see where the light is coming from to light your trees. If you looking for spot lights just tool them into any fixture of your liking.
Yes we run the cat5 all over landscaping projects. You can run 1/2 amp on the cat5 safe but it will try to draw 1 amp if you let it. 12 volts run 6 watts of DC lights per pair and 24 volts run 12 watts. Good DC lights will kick full power at 9 volts not just 12 volts. Line loss can come into consideration but stick to 1/2 amp your good. We comfortably run cat5 325 feet with out an amp with little to no line loss. That is a very long way from your main AC power source.
I know you can find 4 watt par30 lights that will shoot 840 lumen that run 12~24 volts. The capacitor get excited at 8.7 volts and runs the array to full brightness. Just have to watch after 325 feet you get line loss so the voltage drops then your amperage will go up. Cat5 will try to draw 1 amp if you do not stay under a safe distance with out checking voltage drop. We have run it twice the distance just double up the wire. Two + two - .
May not want to run AC and DC in the same conduit for any length, even if it is shielded.
You can get direct bury Cat5 that is shielded, on the cheap.
LED outdoor lighting is pretty cool, but a different type of light as R&R said. I like it tho.
Out lighting guy's are doing some tests with LED stuff for a city that want's to replace all the outdoor lighting, even the street lights. I am not hearing much on the positive side. Just have to see how it plays out.
Don, I sent your info to our guy's after you PM'd me a while back. We do large projects like schools, hospitals and factories. Problem with LED in these applications is payback time. Bean counters look at this stuff
I personally like LED light, and will utilize appropriate amounts of LED light on my property.
Also, be careful on how far you try to shove DC Voltage. If Edison won the battle, I doubt that telephone poles would exist today, and the world may have run out of Copper by now
Ahh see high voltage DC is coming back. DC is more efficient at pushing high power long distances than AC. AC won the battle because it was easy to bill and charge for. Your land line phone runs on 24volt DC still to this day.
We just got the patent granted on our street light retro fit. This unit is CSA approved as well. IT all fits into the existing light fixtures and will be equal if not brighter than conventional lighting at 80% less power.
We have done a private school and one hospital now. The school was a shocker (no pun intended) where this teacher was super sensitive to the florescent lighting. After replacing with LED her head aches went away too. Then she had the head ache back if she spent to much time in the teachers lab. So back in to replace all the lights in the teachers lab. We found if you please the most sceptically person this is the best advertising you will ever give your self.
As to the different type of light. I would like to say that we are one of the leading company's doing LED. It is so hard to get over the flashlight blue LED color. We can make any color anyone wants as long as they take 100 units. We have made infra red for night vision security floods. You do not want to look at an infra red LED when it is on. You cant see anything but it will burn a hole in your retina. Never good to look at any security camera trust me the lights are on.
Nice warm white can be had at a very bright light with the right nano crystalline. Our next generation LED will be 250 lm per watt currently 135 lm per watt.
I wish I could explain how because it is a very cool bit of tech but I would have to have everyone sign an NDA.
At this point when the production becomes perfect LED will be the only lights in the world. LED lighting is just about to really pop and lower output lights will be much cheaper very soon.
Interesting on the phone lines, so I did a bit of reading. The voltage is a -48vdc. To ring the phone, they impose 90VAC over the line, and when you are talking the AC ripples back over the DC and is decoded into speech. There is only about 20 milliamps of current in the DC line and is essentially used for signaling the devices for the AC to do it's job.
Not sure about the high voltage DC stuff. It is interesting tho, but doubt much will happen soon to convert the grid.
I use quite a few LED lights in control systems, mainly for push buttons and indicator lights. I have an indicator beacon here for testing from Banner Engineering. This thing is brighter than a 1000volt xenon strobe light. Plus, they are pretty cool.
![[Linked Image from corvettejunkie.com]](http://www.corvettejunkie.com/pb.gif)
