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Can Anyone "shed some light.."

ThatDoesntLookRight

Evening All,

I have an installation, and need a little assistance:

Client has 6 bollards in a row on a garden circuit, which is digital Time-Clock controlled.

The supply is buried SWA loops which as usual loops in and out of each. The lamp-holders are Bayonet Caps, in new condition, (no loose springs!) and new lamps.

There is a little 4-Amp(?) bladed fuse in-line of the Live of each fitting, these are all checked / new.

There is a confirmed 240v Live to Neutral, And (L-to-E) at each set of pins / terminals, within each bollard; however a lamp only operates inside of one, -the central fixture.

Any thoughts or wisdom?

nb, As part of the process, we've tried new lamps, swapped the lamps around, (still only the one same bollard lighting up) overridden the time clock, and verified Neutral connections through-out. The current at the lamp-holders also seems consistent at each fitting.

Many TIA

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  • 0

    how did you verify the volts at each bollard ?,  -I am  thinking that a modern high impedance meter can read voltages that fall away to zero in the presence of any real load - do you have one of those bayonet to meter pins adapters ? - then you can buzz it on ohms with it off, to verify low impedance connections. This picture is the screw in kind but bayonet ones also exist - it may be that there is something not quite making contact behind the lamp holders

    Also your  comment about current implies something odd, I'd expect the working  lamp to draw a lot more than the ones not lighting !! perhaps you can describe how that was tested as well.

    Mike

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  • 0

    how did you verify the volts at each bollard ?,  -I am  thinking that a modern high impedance meter can read voltages that fall away to zero in the presence of any real load - do you have one of those bayonet to meter pins adapters ? - then you can buzz it on ohms with it off, to verify low impedance connections. This picture is the screw in kind but bayonet ones also exist - it may be that there is something not quite making contact behind the lamp holders

    Also your  comment about current implies something odd, I'd expect the working  lamp to draw a lot more than the ones not lighting !! perhaps you can describe how that was tested as well.

    Mike

Children
  • 0 in reply to mapj1

    Hi mapj1,

    a Two prong tester with the built-in Current Jaws used throughout, (the Fluke T5-600 or equivalent) for the BC pins

    (not a great measurement on the Amps was taken, tbh, but from memory was around an amp) they're little LED lamps.

  • 0 in reply to ThatDoesntLookRight

    an amp sounds an awful lot for an LED in a bayonet fitting, I'd expect no more than a few tens of watts, perhaps of order 0.1 amps

    Mind you looking at the spec for that meter, the input impedance is not the highest - about 1 megohm, and the amp range, at 100 amps full scale could be a few hundred mA off, so the meter may be in spec, and at the same time misleading.

    Mike.

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