Holidays are a known time for seeing friends and family, some of whom you may not be able to see often throughout the rest of the year. A hobby some people love during the holidays is to add decorative lighting to add a warm welcoming appeal to their homes. Whether your lighting is serious and somber to show your religious beliefs or fun and playful to reflect your personality, there are a few things to be aware of with the extra power draw your decorations put on your house.

Tech Specs and Electrical Engineering

When the public electric line reaches your house, it runs to a circuit breaker (or fuse box in older homes) to prevent dangerous levels of overload which could cause a shock, and the breaker is designed to automatically shut off if a dangerous level of electricity is reached with a surge or if too many appliances are run. There are exceptions, but most circuit breakers are designed to handle 15 amps, or a little over 1600 watts of power which is plenty for modern appliances.

The Simple Terms: When You Run Too Much Power

When you overload a circuit breaker, it becomes a nuisance as everything running on that line shuts down. It's not normally a daily occurrence, but usually only happens when something exceptional occurs. Running too many kitchen appliances at once, for example, can overload a circuit breaker, as can running a space heater or power tool on a line already being used. A common cause of circuit failure is when you've never had a problem running a hairdryer and curling iron until a guest in the guest bath turns on a second hairdryer. Holiday lighting usually runs on a low power supply but adds up when layered and can cause problems with a line which is already near its maximum usage levels.

The Layman's and the Professional's Solutions

Thousands of homes each year catch on fire as a result of faulty electrical wiring. A study from the National Fire Protection Association showed that an average of 22,000 home fires between the years of 2003 and 20007 were a result of wiring and related equipment or lighting equipment. These fires resulted in over $700 million in direct damages, 350 deaths and 880 injuries. 72% of these fires were caused by an electrical malfunction or failure of some sort. You can prevent most home fires by making sure that your electrical wiring is properly maintained.

Most electrical fires in the home do not happen because homeowners are careless with their home maintenance on purpose. In fact, most homeowners are as responsible as they know how to be. They just do not have as much information as they should have about electrical wiring safety. Not all homeowners, for example, realize how important it is to keep their homes free of pests.

Even though the connections in your electrical system may be perfectly installed by an electrician in Beverly Hills, insects, rats, mice and other pests could be tearing apart your electrical system if allowed to get out of control. This can greatly increase your risk of fire in your home, because it only takes one frayed wire to create a short that sparks something else to flame.

In order to prevent mishaps like these from happening, you should have your electrical system checked periodically for any safety issues. Although this may seem like a simple step to make, the average homeowner has not had their electrical system inspected in 20 years or more. Having The Electric Connection come inspect your home could end up saving you from a potentially devastating fire. To get in touch with us, or learn more about electrical safety, head on over to our website at www.theelectricconnection.com.

In our new 5th Wheel RV, we received some ceiling mounted 12VDC florescent fixtures. They were equipped with 2 each 18”, 15W tubes and electronic ballasts. The fixtures are a “Low Voltage RV Luminaire” from “Direct Sourcing Alliance” identified as “Type RVL 18RNB-W”, “2 x 15W”, “Input Rating: 12V DC, 30W”. Their performance has been dismal with operation limited to, initially 30-45 minutes before shutting down due to overheating of the ballast. The “on” time got progressively shorter over the next few weeks. The overheating was certainly not due to ambient temperatures which have been in the low 70s or cooler. On disassembly for conversion to LED operation it was discovered the ballasts have discolored due to high heat (see closest end of ballast in Picture 2).

During review of options for LED conversion I was looking for a natural light color temperature with equivalent lumen output to the two 15W florescent tubes. I settled on the SuperBrightLEDs part number RLBN-NW30*3SMD which is a 19.5 inch rigid strip with 30 each 3SMD modules. The advertised light output was 603 lumin at a color temperature of 5600K. The two 18”, 15W tubes were stated to produce 825 lumins each so I was a little concerned about light loss especially since I was going to have to cut 6 LED modules off each of the two strips to fit inside the existing fixture. I bought a 3rd strip but in the end did not use it as the light was ample.

I first started by removing the “guts” of the florescent leaving some length of the switched power wires for future use. See pictures 1, 2, and 3.

After cleaning the interior of the fixture with alcohol for acrylic tape adhesion I fitted the rigid LED strips and cut 6 LED modules from the length, then mounted the strips using 3M double sided acrylic tape. Finally, completed power connections to existing fixture switch circuit. See pictures 4 through 10.

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