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Discussion Starter · #1 ·
A blessed and prosperous New Year to all. Ok, I've done plenty of residential/commercial 110/220v electric since 1965 but never LED on 240v. Recently I built a shed around the pump and have law/garden items in the one corner. I like to add a light so I purchased an led light good for 100-265 vac. It has like 26 gauge leads. The electric consists of two single gang waterproof boxes stacked. The top one has a dp switch and the bottom box has all the connections. The ground is connected to the two metal boxes. Can I just connect to two hots in the first box up to the two leads on the little led transformer ? Can it have just one leg switched or must it be a dp switch like the pump has ? Thanks. GBY
 

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As with most well systems, you don't have a neutral. Can you confirm that? If you had a neutral, you could come off one leg of the 240 volts to power your light. Will your light set up work with only the two hots?
 

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It sounds like you have a switching power supply that will work on a wide range of voltages. In your case, the full 240 should be fine. Since you say it has a DP switch already, why are you asking. Connect your line wires to line input terminals of the switch and power supply primary to the load terminals. I wonder why it wasn't pre-wired? A picture would help with all the guts exposed.

The low voltage wires have to exit the box without being around the line voltage wires so check out how that is supposed to happen and not violate it. The wire going to the light can be open wire likely but we need to see some pics.
 

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Not much on that Amazon to make any decision on. Claims to be a 120 vac device but has a connector for an LED driver??? Any spec. sheet or instructions come with it? Did it come with the LED driver and connector cable?
 

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Discussion Starter · #7 ·
It sounds like you have a switching power supply that will work on a wide range of voltages. In your case, the full 240 should be fine. Since you say it has a DP switch already, why are you asking. Connect your line wires to line input terminals of the switch and power supply primary to the load terminals. I wonder why it wasn't pre-wired? A picture would help with all the guts exposed.




I have an octagon box at the ceiling to mount the light. I have conduit ran from the one box up to the ceiling. The dp switch turns the pump off/on. I was going to have an sp switch on one leg to turn the light on/off. Not sure what that little x-former does or is capable of. Chinese instructions not too good. Any voltage up to 265v with a hot neutral ?
 

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OK, that's a little clearer now. I thought you had a complete kit with all those parts. Now I understand a little better.

My crystal balls is out of order so I needed you to clear things up. :wink2:

That thing you are calling a transformer is actually an LED driver which converts ac line voltage to a low level DC voltage that LED lamps require.

If the rating tag says it is suitable for 120 - 240 then you can connect those stripped wires to the existing light fixture wires inside that octo box you have. It will switch on and off with the existing light.

You will need a low voltage cable to run to the fixture... did it come with one?

It should be an easy install but from a code standpoint, the driver primary wires need to be protected by some method so they aren't exposed. You should mount it inside a proper sized j-box to be code legal. Not seeing it, I can't suggest anything different, as I said, my crystal ball is not working correctly. :sad:
 

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Discussion Starter · #9 · (Edited)
Thanks for that. An LED driver is a new thing to this old man, but I understand what it's doing. The installation instructions leave much to be desired. I wasn't sure it would take two hots or or a hot/neutral ac up to 265v. I was going to bring 14-2 thhn in the conduit up from the pump to the octagon box. The light has a space above it that holds the driver and a bracket that connects to the octagon box. The 14-2 would connect to those two 26 ga. leads into the driver. The other end of the driver has a connector that plugs into the led array.
 

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If there is no existing light then you will need to mount a new box that you can put the driver in and feed a cable over to the pump j-box and run wire from the incoming 240 line over to the new box to power the driver. Then you can put a switch box wherever you like and cable it into the new box. Use a double pole switch so you kill both line phases to be safe.

Does that seem to fit your situation there?
 

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OK, just read your post that you put up while I was typing my rant. I think you're getting there now.. What say you... have I covered it enough for you to do it and have it safe?

I have to leave for a few minutes, I'll check when I get back to see if you have any need.
 

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I'm back... If you need anything else, post up and we'll get on it. Be sure to ground any metal box you install for that switch.

To make it easier, just run 2 separate 12/2 cables to the switch box, one for the line and one for the load.

Hey, I'm an old man too, probably my 83½ makes you feel like a kid. :smile:
 

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Dont even know why this is selling on amazon, this light is not UL, not approved for US or canada use. It may work but if it starts a fire, you won't be covered since it is not code to use unnaproved light assembly (at least the driver must be approved and this one is not)
 

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Description say 120-240 vac. Volts alternating current
Yes, that's the primary voltage for the LED driver since it has a switching power circuit that can accommodate both voltages. It converts the 60 cycle power to a much higher frequency so that a very small physical size transformer can be used. Then it runs the output through a solid state voltage regulator so it gets dropped down and regulated to 24 VDC.

A conventional transformer with the necessary components to do this same job would be much bigger in size and much costlier.

Best regards, SD2
 

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The inductive reactance of a transformer is calculated by the formula:

XL = 2piFL so when you up the frequency from 60 cps to 1000 cps the effective inductance of a small transformer can be equal to a much greater one. Actually it would be 1000/60 effectively increased or 16 2/3 greater.
 

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Yes, that's the primary voltage for the LED driver since it has a switching power circuit that can accommodate both voltages. It converts the 60 cycle power to a much higher frequency so that a very small physical size transformer can be used. Then it runs the output through a solid state voltage regulator so it gets dropped down and regulated to 24 VDC.

A conventional transformer with the necessary components to do this same job would be much bigger in size and much costlier.

Best regards, SD2
doesnt work this way with a lot of leds, the driver is a constant current source (it may output 24v without any load, but may drop to 16-18v with led connected) that is adapted to specific led.
 
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