The connections on most any low voltage light is always going to be
damp and conduct a certain amaount of current, be it above or below
water level. My ponds low voltage lights around the shoreline have
routinely been totally submerged in water well over their tops and
burn just fine udner water until the pond water level drops to
normal...There is not enough resistence to make em
short........However excessive current flow can do some strange things
to fish, be it low or high voltage.......

Are you sure they are 24VDC, and not 12 Volt AC. I have never seen any
residential 24VDC lighting, I have seen it in commercial stuff though.
I would stick with the norm and go 24 volts.

If you hneed to spice your wires to your lights and have it water
proof there is a kit made by 3M (Scotch) that you can buy........not
really cheap, about 20 bucks for one 2 conductor lead.........do not
use silicone to "waterproof" your connections as its bound to
fail.....

On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 13:14:33 GMT, "Snooze" wrote:

==="SkyCatcher" wrote in message
...
===
=== I just got some low votage (24v dc) lighting for my pond. The instructions
=== say that the connections for the lights to the 24v supply cable must be
=== made out of the water. This makes it virtually impossible for me to set
=== them up as I want to.
===
=== Does anyone knbow if this is essential? Will the fish be subjected to a
=== low votage leak if I do make the connections underwater? Will the lights
=== just fuse?
===
===
===24v dc? The ones sold in America, in particular Intermatic/Malibu low
===voltage lights I believe are 12 v ac. The connections have to be made above
===the water line because the connectors are just vampire taps. You place the
===wire between the two halves of the connector, and squeeze the connector
===shut. Two blades inside the connector cut through the insulation and make
===contact with the wire..
===
===If it was below water, the connection would quickly corrode and the water
===would cause a short circuit.
===
===Look for something like this:
===http://www.intermatic.com/?action=prod&pid=72
===
===I made my pond light out of a sealed beam car headlamp, car headlamps are
===much brighter, bulb lasts longer, and cheaper. Just solder the wires to the
===terminals on the headlamp, and cover the connection and terminals with a
===good thick coating of aquarium caulking.
===
===Sealed beam headlamps come as low beam, or high beam, or low/high beam
===combined. I recommend the low/high beam combined version if your
===transformer has the capacity, you get a brighter and wider beam pattern.
===
===The high or low only bulbs have two terminals the high/low bulbs have 3
===terminals. One terminal is low beam +, one is high beam + and the other is
===the common/ground. If memory serves me correctly the terminals look like
===this
===(Low) (High)
=== (Gnd)
===
===
===-S
===


==============================================
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