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Old 10-04-2003, 07:20 PM
Snooze
 
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Default home made pond light

This past weekend I've setup the garden lights. One of the things I made,
based on an idea discussed in here a few months back was a car headlamp
based underwater light.

I purchased a sealed beam, Sylvania H4656, which is a combination of high
and low beam in 1 unit. A high beam only would have been desirable, but I
couldn't find any that had prongs that were convenient to solder the wires
to.

If you look at the back of the bulb you will see 3 prongs

high low
O O
O
ground

A side view of one of the prongs, looked like this.
--------\
O |
--------/

Connect 1 wire to the ground, and 1 wire to the high beam prong. The solder
didn't bond very well, to the prongs, so I found it easier to thread the
wire through the whole in the prong, and wrap it back around itself, and
solder the wire.

Cover all prongs with aquarium caulking to prevent corrosion. Note: Do not
use kitchen/bath/window caulking, most of that stuff isn't safe to use in
ponds. Let it cure in the sun for 2-3 days, then wash it off. Aquarium
caulking can be purchased at most pet stores, but is cheaper at Orchard
Supply & Hardware.

I haven't decided yet, if I'm going to embed this setup in a concrete block,
or if I'm going to just rest a rock on top of it. otherwise it will just
float in the pond on the surface.

Right now it's just resting on top of my waterfall, awaiting me to decide
where I want to place it.

http://www.boredom.org/~manek/garden/pond_april_2003/

--
Sameer

change the two in my email address to a 2, when replying