Ralph Mowery wrote:

"Rob Mills" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
...

Hi, I am thinking of buying a spool of 8 gauge low voltage wires to
use with my Malibu 600W transformer for my yard. Will the 8 gauge
wires be too hard to deploy since they are so thick? Also will the
cable connectors that come with the Malibu light fixtures be able to
clamp around the wire and penetrate the sheathing?

I am using 12 gauge at this time, but the lights are pretty dimmer
since the total length is about 70'.

What about running 2 transformers in parallel. Might be less labor than
digging up 70ft of wire. If you happen to have access to a second
transformer it wouldn't hurt to try.

I gave up on those low voltage garden lights a long time ago. It seems
like the ones sold in kits (Toro, Malibu) from HD, Lowes and etc
are so cheaply made it's impossible to keep them going very long.
RM~


YOu can not parallel 2 transformers to help in this case. The problem with
low voltage wiring is there is too much voltage drop along the wires unless
very large wire is used.


While you shouldn't parallel two transformers if replacing wire is a
Herculean task it would be possible to place a rectifier on each
transformer secondary, and build a fairly simple active device that will
sum the currents from each source to accomplish a the same thing as
paralleling the transformers, The only difference is that the lamps
would be supplied with dc instead of ac.

Small voltage variations (as are caused by the voltage drop in the wire)
will cause quite noticeable changes in perceived brightness. Around its
normal operating point a 0.25 volt difference for a 12 v lamp will
result in an 8% change in brightness. If the voltage drop increases to
0.5 volts, the brightness change is 16%. Further, as the voltage
drops the temperature also drops and the color will shift further to the
longer (more yellow) wavelengths.