12 volt out door lighting I have 4 path lights 7 watts each and a 150 watt hadco transformer.?

Question

Im having bulbs burnout every few weeks? im using 12 guage wire.voltage at each fixture is 11.9 to 12.2 volts the lights are within 60ft from the trans former. voltage at the house fixture is 118 volts. why are the bulbs burning out.?

Answer 1

How old is the system? Have you/anyone done any digging in the areas of the main line? (possibly cutting into the line)

Make sure all your connections are all watertight and solid. Check to make sure there is no debris in the bulb sockets

(thus creating a temporary short).

Make sure the replaced bulbs are of the correct wattage/quality for the system. Many if not all (quality) transformers should have a manual reset button or a thermally controlled reset. This may not be working properly and creating voltage spikes.

Check the link to get in touch with the manufacture. Some of their products carry a lifetime warranty.

Answer 2

Are you sure the filament is breaking?

Vibration is hard on all bulbs, and would lead to blowing.

Is it possible that you've just got a loose / arcing socket that's loosing contact....?

If all the bulbs are actually burning out, and you're using the correct bulbs, there must be some kind of intermittent power surge.

Answer 3

this is a little confusing...but you don't appear to have enough electrical draw (4 lights) to match the transformer and length of the wire.

as near as I can tell...based on the instructions that came with a set of low voltage lamps...the transformer, number of lights and length of wire are matched... I.E.  8 lights @ 7 watts each to a 50ft section of wire....the instructions also stated that you had to be careful NOT to let burned out bulbs remain for too long a time...to replace them as soon as you can....based on experience with these lights, what they say is true...I've had three and four bulbs burnt out at one time and the remaining bulbs seemed to burn out quite often.

I don't claim to know at lot about this...but it seems that you don't have enough of a load on the line (with 4 lamps) ...and the load should match the transformer as near as possible...with four lamps @ 7 watts you should have a transformer around 30 watts.

Answer 4

Three things that come to mind.

1)  The voltage is a little too high.

2)  Cheap light bulbs.

3)  Vibrations from traffic.

Or, the voltage to the transformer isn't always 118 volts.  It may be getting some additional back-feeding when some other things are on in the house.  (this can happen with poor neutral and ground connections on the utility side)

So at times, the voltage to the transformer could go up, in turn the voltage to the lights will go up, and burn them out.