Driveway Lighting

[RF Lighting]

The smallest SWA gland you can get is 20mm.

If your fittings only have a 15mm hole then they are not suitable for terminating SWA to.

ALL underground cabling must be fully surrounded by earthed metal, so cutting the armour back short of the light is not allowed. Also you need to ensure earth continuity of the armour right throughout the circuit which will be very difficult to acheive without proper terminations.

 

[bernardgreen]

I agree that these lights are not going to provide much if any worthwhile illumination.

There may be a way to connect them.

Bring the SWA cables vertical upwards and gland the armouring into holes in a circular gland plate that is horizontal and supported so they will be just below the glands in the lamp fitting when the fiting is put in place. The glands in the lamp unit being fitted so they can be tightened from above. The cores and internal sheaths of the cables are fed up through the lamp unit glands as the lamp unit is lowered into place over the gland plate. When the lamp unit is in place its glands can be tightened onto the cores and sheath. It may be necessary to add a tight fitting sheath to re-inforce the sheath around the cores.

Then the cores can be connected and the lamps put into the lamp units.

I would consider using a third core as an earth for the lamps to ensure they are earthed without having to make and rely on a connection from the gland plate to the lamp unit.

 

[p33kev]

The armoured cable is 3 core with a dedicated earth. Does this change anything?

If not, then cant i attach the banjo to the casing via an earth cable without needing the gland to connect to the casing.

 

[bernardgreen]

The armouring needs to be protected from continuous contact with water other wise over years the armouring will rust leading to loss of continuity. Hence the glands for the SWA being fitted above the drained area

 

[AdamCH]

Can't you drill out the holes to 20mm?

 

[SimonH2]

... or can i terminate the swa before the outer casing therefore have the inner cable go through the hole.

No, the SWA needs to be terminated into an enclosure. If the body of your lamps isn't big enough, then you'd need to terminate the SWA into a separate sealed enclosure and use a different cable to go into the light fitting.

With wall lights that would be a fairly simple matter, you'd have the SWA come out of the ground (if the cable were underground) into the bottom of the box, and the loop out cable would similarly come into the bottom of the box. The junction box could be fairly low down and a piece of cable between it and the light fitting, or if the fitting supported it, the box could be linked to the fitting with appropriate bushings.

 

[SimonH2]

Just a thought ...

It would be expensive and I suspect impractical, but ...

Could he do an inline crimped and potted joint to tee off a short bit of non-armoured flex from the SWA ? Since this short bit of flex would be directly below the lamp, you could argue that it should be reasonably safe since I think it would be hard to find anyone likely to be digging up the drive that might not expect a cable below the light fitting ?
BTW, can you get "solid filled" cables on the civvie market ? I've worked on boats (can't say too much, hint) and where a cable goes through a watertight bulkhead, they are either solid filled cables, or use a terminator (which is itself watertight) so that damage in one compartment doesn't allow water to pass along the cable to another compartment. "Solid filled" means that all the gaps between the copper strands are filled with insulator material (rubber on the ones I worked with) to eliminate the small channels that would otherwise exist down the cores. Use of solid filled cables would avoid water that gets into the light fittings travelling down the cable into the potted joint.

Or a variation on that, terminate the armouring on the two tails and link the armours, but leave the inner long enough to reach the light fitting. Then pot the termination so it's two armoured in, two unarmoured out and link through the fitting ?


Much simpler to just put up a 500W halogen security light, aimed so that it comes on with traffic on the street and shines into drivers eyes and the windows of the house opposite. Or at least, that seems to be the standard installation arrangement

 

[ban-all-sheds]

BTW this will be on a separate isolated circuit with its own breaker.

A double pole one?

The armoured cable is 3 core with a dedicated earth. Does this change anything?

No.

If not, then cant i attach the banjo to the casing via an earth cable without needing the gland to connect to the casing.

So you'd have the gland just lying in the ground, with unarmoured cables (now including an added flylead from the banjo) buried?

And water getting into the inside of the SWA cable through the gland?

I don't think so.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

The smallest SWA gland you can get is 20mm.

If your fittings only have a 15mm hole then they are not suitable for terminating SWA to.

Sounds as if you have bought lights which are not fit for purpose.