View Single Post
  #1   Report Post  
Posted to alt.home.repair
Andrew Duane Andrew Duane is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 66
Default Low voltage lighting transformers

One of my hanging ceiling lights has decided not to work any more.
It's a low voltage halogen with a small built in transformer, an LET
60 type 60-watt 12 volt unit. It looks like the transformer is gone;
it shows almost no voltage at the output with a DVM. I get about 1/4
volt that rapidly dwindles to 0.

My question is whether these transformers *need* some load to actually
product voltage, in which case my DVM is giving me a false negative.
This is much like the "floating 85V" you often get on a switched off
120V line when using a high impedance DVM to check it.

Before I drop $20 on a new transformer, I'd like to make sure it's
really the culprit. The lighting store I bought the lamp from does say
that they "do fail in service sometimes"..... hardly real evidence.