LED lighting is the rage now that it is available in landscape lighting. Understandably so, with the energy efficiency that it offers, this lowers your cost to run your lighting system not just by way of energy savings, but also by way of running it on smaller, less expensive transformers and wire. And you can do so without having to compromise on design and drama in your landscape lighting. In regards to planning your landscape lighting-whether you are doing it yourself or hiring someone to do it for you, one of the things that needs to go in to your planning and design phase is voltage loss or voltage drop.
So, what is voltage drop? Voltage drop is when voltage at the beginning of a length of cable (at the transformer end) is higher than the voltage at the end-it is the difference between those two values that is known as voltage drop or voltage loss.
Why should you care about this? Because when there is significant voltage drop, the light fixtures at the end of the cable run are actually dimmer-visibly dimmer than the fixtures closer to the transformer which will appear to be significantly brighter.
You can avoid or minimize the voltage drop through proper selection of the cable size based on total wattage load of your fixtures and the length or the cable run. Total LED Malibu Lighting can help you plan accordingly so that you can have stunning results with your landscape LED lighting fixtures.
One thing to keep in mind is the measure of power consumption, which is "wattage". Wattage is NOT a measure of brightness. For example, a 15 watt LED fixture can often outperform a 50 watt standard incandescent light by way of brightness.
Total LED Malibu Lighting has created an informative video that walks you through what needs to be taken into consideration in order to minimize voltage drop in your landscape lighting system:
Voltage Drop Chart(copyright Total Outdoor Lighting Supply)
Total LED Lighting has also created a voltage drop chart to help you in your design phase. These formulas will help you formulate what the actual voltage drop will be. There are many variables that affect voltage drop (as discussed in the video), so this chart is intended to at least get you closer to what that drop will be. To be totally accurate, a voltage meter in the field is always the best way to go.
