OP
OP
AK77
Fish Herder
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
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I've kept on recommending them as a cheap metal halide lighting solution but didn't currently own one, until now.
I ordered it yesterday and it arrived promptly this afternoon! It was also an absolute steal at £28 delivered (Nemo you can stop cursing me now lol
)!! It came with a free bulb too, although I should imagine its a standard 6500k one or less. I'm just awaiting a 10'000k bulb to arrive now.
I've had these lights before. Two of them were bolted to my wall above my old Juwel Rio 180, which now belongs to a couple of chav's down the road for their lizard, since the seals burst on it and the cabinet all blew up due to moisture outside.
Anyhoo, I thought I'd show you how easy these things are to wire up. I currently don't have any 3 core flex, although I might pinch some off a spare extension lead I have outside lol. Basically if you can wire up a 3 pin plug, you can wire up these lights and have 70/150/250/400 watts of lighting hanging over your pride and joy.
Note the two small screws at the top corners of the fixture. Once unscrewed, the light flips open as its hinged and the other end.
Here you can see the cable gland. This is where you feed your 3 core flex into the light fixture
The opened light. You can see where the bulb goes and all the electronics in the back
Here is a close-up of the electronics.
Note the terminal blocks at the bottom. The earth wire is visible. The blue / brown wires are either side but are protected with a heat resistant wrap. Sometimes this heat wrap covers only part of the wires, so the colours are apparent. However, in this one, the colours are completely hidden. So what do you do??
Although they are visible in the picture above, they aren't immediately apparent. Unscrew the terminal blocks and raise them up slightly to reveal a wiring diagram. Doing this also makes it a bit easier to wire everything in. Just don't get the thing the wrong way round and wire it up in reverse (although the bend in the wires gives a good idea of how the thing is meant to be seated)
In this case its showing the live wire (brown) to go to the left and the neutral (blue wire) to go to the right, with the earth going in the middle to marry up with the one on display already. All you have to do is strip the ends of your 3 core flex and insert the correct wire into each of the terminal blocks. When it comes to wiring up the plug, just do a google search and look at a diagram. The way I remember it is bLue (note the L) goes to the left of the plug, bRown (note the R) goes to the right where the fuse is. The green and yellow is the earth, which goes in the middle/top pin. Once the plug is fitted, you can then put these on a timer switch. You should only require a 3amp fuse for these lights (70w). If memory serves the rough equation is Wattage/voltage = amperage. So 70W/240V = 0.29A. These figures are for the UK only. If in doubt, contact an electrician.
I'll get some pictures up when the light is all wired up and the bulb fitted in. I also need to get around to making a hood assembly to house this in, so stay tuned for that too lol. If you want the details of where to get these from, just PM and I'll let you know. In the meantime, you can see what the old ones looked like above my old tank (excuse the pictures, camera back then wasn't the greatest and my photographic skillz... were virtually non existent lol)
I ordered it yesterday and it arrived promptly this afternoon! It was also an absolute steal at £28 delivered (Nemo you can stop cursing me now lol
)!! It came with a free bulb too, although I should imagine its a standard 6500k one or less. I'm just awaiting a 10'000k bulb to arrive now.I've had these lights before. Two of them were bolted to my wall above my old Juwel Rio 180, which now belongs to a couple of chav's down the road for their lizard, since the seals burst on it and the cabinet all blew up due to moisture outside.
Anyhoo, I thought I'd show you how easy these things are to wire up. I currently don't have any 3 core flex, although I might pinch some off a spare extension lead I have outside lol. Basically if you can wire up a 3 pin plug, you can wire up these lights and have 70/150/250/400 watts of lighting hanging over your pride and joy.
Note the two small screws at the top corners of the fixture. Once unscrewed, the light flips open as its hinged and the other end.
Here you can see the cable gland. This is where you feed your 3 core flex into the light fixture
The opened light. You can see where the bulb goes and all the electronics in the back
Here is a close-up of the electronics.
Note the terminal blocks at the bottom. The earth wire is visible. The blue / brown wires are either side but are protected with a heat resistant wrap. Sometimes this heat wrap covers only part of the wires, so the colours are apparent. However, in this one, the colours are completely hidden. So what do you do??
Although they are visible in the picture above, they aren't immediately apparent. Unscrew the terminal blocks and raise them up slightly to reveal a wiring diagram. Doing this also makes it a bit easier to wire everything in. Just don't get the thing the wrong way round and wire it up in reverse (although the bend in the wires gives a good idea of how the thing is meant to be seated)
In this case its showing the live wire (brown) to go to the left and the neutral (blue wire) to go to the right, with the earth going in the middle to marry up with the one on display already. All you have to do is strip the ends of your 3 core flex and insert the correct wire into each of the terminal blocks. When it comes to wiring up the plug, just do a google search and look at a diagram. The way I remember it is bLue (note the L) goes to the left of the plug, bRown (note the R) goes to the right where the fuse is. The green and yellow is the earth, which goes in the middle/top pin. Once the plug is fitted, you can then put these on a timer switch. You should only require a 3amp fuse for these lights (70w). If memory serves the rough equation is Wattage/voltage = amperage. So 70W/240V = 0.29A. These figures are for the UK only. If in doubt, contact an electrician.
I'll get some pictures up when the light is all wired up and the bulb fitted in. I also need to get around to making a hood assembly to house this in, so stay tuned for that too lol. If you want the details of where to get these from, just PM and I'll let you know. In the meantime, you can see what the old ones looked like above my old tank (excuse the pictures, camera back then wasn't the greatest and my photographic skillz... were virtually non existent lol)
