Moving Along

Things are moving along well after a bit of a slow down over the Christmas/New Year period.

Plastering is almost done as is the tiling. The electrician and Telstra were on site today getting the power and phone line from the gate to the house. Once we get a break in the weather we can get the tank installed and that will be the last of the essential services (the waste water system was put in about a week ago).

I haven’t had a chance to take any pictures as the weather has been horrible. Hopefully I will get a chance this weekend for a mega photo shoot.

2 Replies to “Moving Along”

  1. Hello Paul,
    Just wondering if I might be able to communicate directly with you ?
    I am doing an installation at my home similar to yours and need to share some thoughts about LED downlights, existing switch mode ‘transformers’ and their incredible RFI, replacing these ‘transformers’ with centralised iron core transformers and doing that myself.
    MM

    1. Sorry, I only just saw your blog comment – normally the comments are just spam 🙂

      I am using the transformers that came with my LED lights and RFI hasn’t been a problem, although I am guessing from your email that you are an amateur radio operator, so I guess you would have more problems with RFI than the average person. I have seen many reports on the Whirpool forums of people having their TV reception wiped out by cheap LED fittings from eBay – this doesn’t seem to be an issue with Australian approved lights from reputable suppliers.

      In theory you can use iron core transformers with LED, as long as you don’t supply too much voltage (iron core transformers are normally unregulated, so voltage will increase as load decreases). The other issue is that iron core transformers that are used with downlights are typically AC, while the LED may be expecting DC.

      You may need to build yourself a DC power supply – regulation probably isn’t necessary as long as you have enough load. You would also need to be careful of voltage drop over the wires to your lights – although LED should be much less susceptible to the effects of voltage drop than a traditional halogen.

      As for doing it yourself, legally, mains wiring has to be done by a licensed electrician. The DC side is open. As far as building your own power supply, I am not sure. Probably it has to be done by someone licensed, but I have built plenty of mains powered kits and so on in my time and I am still here (nothing has burnt down either) 🙂

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