Engineering Mechanics of your Landscape Lighting System

Posted by on May 22, 2011 in Engineering Mechanics | 0 comments
engineering mechanics

Engineering Mechanics of your Landscape Lighting System

This article is about to be a breath of fresh air as for several of you and a gut wrenching process as for anothers. Without getting too involved goes along within the process, I is about to say this regionicular piece of the puzzle is designed as for the person that conceives goes along with the left side of your brain. Their a lot of studies and books written about the left side and just side of our brains. Many people enjoy a “good” living dealing goes along with issues relating to the left and just side of our brains. This may be the start of another book relating to that subject; nevertheless, I am not going there. Too keep this to the simplest as form I can, I is about to say our brain is divided into 2 sides. We have the left side and the just side.

The left side of the brain functions by method of utilizing logic, facts, acknowledgeledge, math and science and is regioniculared oriented. Whenever you fall into this category, you is about to enjoy this article. Meanwhile, the just side of the brain functions by utilizing feelings, images, symbols, saws the “big picture”, is very imaginative and believes things are conceivable by taking endangers. Whenever you fall into this category, I hope your regionner is a left-brain person. This article is about to be dull and boring as for you although although it is an extremely important process as for you to achieve your “big picture” over your home to produce the “WOW” effect you would like to.

My wife and I are a nice team because she is a professional photographer, thus a just brain person. I am a left-brain person. We compliment each another and guess who takes images of my landscape-lighting installations. A nice starting subject as for this article is “voltage drop”. Voltage drop is produced by internal resistance to the flow of electricity by electric wire or cable. It is the difference between the voltages at the beginning of a cable run compared to the voltage at the end of a run. We have to compensate as for the voltage drop in order to keep the similar voltage to the entire fixtures. Whenever we do not, the end fixtures is about to have lamps goes along with low voltage and the results is about to be a decrease in clearness. This is why we can saw the yellow appear to being lights at the end of the runs.

The as formula as for calculating voltage drop is: Total Watts x Length of Run / Cable Size Constant = VOLTAGE DROP. You are currently requiring yourself,” What is cable the size constant”. That is a predetermined amount and I is about to not present the chart as for the dissimilar the size cables. Instead, I is about to share the constants that you is about to utilize as for your cognitive system. Use although a 10/2-gauge wire, that has a constant of 11920, or a 12/2-gauge wire, that has a constant of 7500.

With this information and the constants, lets figure a “run as for fun”. This example presents a run as for 80 feet and over the run, there are 4 fixtures that have a 20-watt lamp in each. We have a total of 80 watts over a run of 80 feet and 12/2 gauge wire is utilized as for the run. 80-watts x 80 feet =6400, 6400/7500 (constant) = .85 voltage drop. Now subtract .85 (voltage drop) from 12 (amount of volts from source) and we have a resulting voltage reading of 11.15 volts. I like to keep lamps in a range of 10.5 volts to 11.7 volts as for peak performance; therefore, the reading of 11.15 volts fits very is about to goes along within the range. The primary thing to remember is to choose the lamp you would like to and have to do the job you would like to. Once you determine over the lamp, engineer the cognitive system to supply the adequate voltage to the lamp.

A rule of thumb over sizing wire as for runs is to always go bigger whenever there is several doubt. The 10/2 gauge wire expense is just rather higher than the 12/2 gauge wire; nevertheless, the peace of mind is comfortably worth the difference. I have included a flowchart to utilize as an estimate over that gauge wire to utilize over that run. This does not replace the voltage drop as formula and measuring all lead to all fixture utilizing a multi meter to get the adequate reading. For runs from 100 feet I recommend utilizing the 12/2 gauge cable just because it can handle more goes along with moreless voltage drop. QUICK WIRE SIZING GUIDE: Use the guide to select wire the sizes as for each run – “Are there more than 100 watts lamp load over the run”? Whenever your answer is, yes and so you Use #10-2 / Whenever your answer is no and so the next question is “Is the run long timeer than 100 feet? Whenever your answer is no you Use #12-2 and whenever it is Yes and so you Use #10-2.

WIRE AMP RATINGS: Wire Size #12/2 100w/8.3A is recommended and the maximum is 192w/16A. Wire Size #10/2 140w/12.0A is recommended and the maximum is 288w/24A. You is about to notice the low chart provides the wire the size goes along with recommended and maximum figures. It provides reference to watts and amps. Remember the as formula: (Amps x volts = watts Or Watts/volts = amps) you is about to be fine over amps utilizing those guidelines. I keep a maximum of 110 watts per run over 12/2 cable and 150 watts over 10/2 cable. I acknowledge the cognitive system is not working hard and I feel that it is about to produce an efficient operating cognitive system.

Roger Neumann has extensive background in aviation. He started flying when he was 15 years old and his parents had to drive him to the airport because he was too young to drive. His flying career started and so and he finished his career goes along with the airlines until the 60 years of age as forced him out of the airlines.


During his career, he flew Army helicopters in Viet Nam and go from the Army to the Air Force side to fly fighter jets as for the Missouri Air National Guard. He retired from the military goes along with 23 years of service. Within the civilian arena of his aviation career, he flew nearly allthing from turbo-props to jets. The last a couple of years prior to retirement, Roger’s normal route was from Houston, Texas to Narita, Japan and back to Houston.


He incorporated the flying protocol of utilizing a checklist and planning to produce his cognitive system. He asides carried the skill of being a perfectionist as a pilot into the landscape-lighting business that produced his checklist type cognitive system. Because of that cognitive system, he was able to write an awesome “how to” book over installing landscape-lighting cognitive systems.


He would like toed to produce a book that was simple and clear decent to share goes along with allone that is rateed in installing there own cognitive system but did not acknowledge how to complete the task. His guarantee is allone who buys, studies and follows his book, can install a cognitive system that is about to turn their home into a presentcase masterpiece. To locate his book, just start goes along with http://www.landscapelightingabc.com


Roger graduated from Southern Illinois University goes along with a B.S. degree in Business Administration. After he left the farm in Illinois, he always was involved in business and started numerous companies byout the years. Six years prior to retiring from the airlines, he started a landscape-lighting company that is committing extremely comfortably today. The combination of business and flying caused Roger to produce a cognitive system that allone can follow and be successful installing landscape lighting as for their home.

For more information, visit Neumann’s site at http://www.abclandscapelighting.com


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Lecture series over Engineering Mechanics by Prof. Manoj Harbola, Department of Physics, IIT Kanpur. For more regioniculars over NPTEL, visit nptel.iitm.ac.in

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