ends of swa into plastic

[johnad]

What is the best way to terminate swa into the plastic weatherproof boxes that are available from tlc ?
I will have two of them so the swa will need to go into one box then out to follow onto the next one .
Can I terminate into the plastic with the gland using the earth tag as a way to link the two lengths of armoured together I was thinking of maybe bolting the two earth tags together and space the holes in the box to accommodate.
I hope this all makes sense
Also I would like to use par 38 spots on spikes so what would be the best flex to run out of the box to feed the lights ?
Many thanks

 

[Steve]

hituff is good.


And re the SWA, do as you say, space them so that the banjos meet and you can put one screw through both.

 

[Spark123]

Use piranha locknuts for each of the SWA glands, bin the banjos.
If you are in England or Wales and this is outdoor lighting in a garden then this work will be notifiable to your LABC under part p of the building regs.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Use piranha locknuts for each of the SWA glands, bin the banjos.

Yup.

Johnad - the reasons for that advice are twofold:

1) It's one less hole in the box where water can get in.

2) More importantly it means that the quality of the connection of the armours to each other and to earth does not depend on how tightly you can do the gland nuts up onto a plastic box - there's a grub screw in the earth nut which screws up against the gland.

 

[Lectrician]

And lets face it, a galv locknut (as supplied in gland packs) will always corrode eventually. The Pnuts kill many birds with a single stone.

Can be pricey though.

 

[Click-Sure]

The Pnuts kill many birds with a single stone.

Worrying news, I wouldn't use them if i knew they were damaging to wildlife...

 

[johnad]

Yes I did mean to get the bolt trough the two banjos together
But I think I will get some piranha nuts.
And what about the best type of flex to use coming out the box to feed some par 38 spots that will be on spikes along the flower bed

 

[ban-all-sheds]

How visible will the flex be? i.e. will it be concealed and at risk of damage?

Steve suggested Hituf, which is nice and tough, but can be a b****r to work with, and isn't suitable for being covered in soil in a flower bed.

 

[johnad]

I was thinking more along the lines of plastic or rubber it will be in the surface so can be seen and as the spots will be on spikes they may be moved from time to time.
The flex they put on garden pond equipment is rubber (I think?) so I was thinking along the same lines also im not sure if its better to run from light to light or to run each light individually form the supply box that will be mounted in a wooden post in the garden (assuming I have the room for two connections on the fitting?)

Many thanks for your advice

 

[Sureitsoff?]

I was thinking more along the lines of plastic or rubber it will be in the surface so can be seen and as the spots will be on spikes they may be moved from time to time.
The flex they put on garden pond equipment is rubber (I think?) so I was thinking along the same lines also im not sure if its better to run from light to light or to run each light individually form the supply box that will be mounted in a wooden post in the garden (assuming I have the room for two connections on the fitting?)

Many thanks for your advice

The company I work for often has returned pond pumps with up to 10m of cable on them. If you are prepared to pay the postage I could "retrieve" this cable. PM me if you are interested although with postage costs as they are it may be cheaper to buy a reel of cable from an electrical supplier.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

The flex they put on garden pond equipment is rubber (I think?)

Yes - commonly called TRS (tough rubber sheath) or H05VV-F in harmonised terminology (check the Wiki for details of that coding system).

so I was thinking along the same lines also im not sure if its better to run from light to light or to run each light individually form the supply box that will be mounted in a wooden post in the garden (assuming I have the room for two connections on the fitting?)

I guess it depends on where everything is in relation to each other, and how much freedom you want to move things around.

You may not be able to get two glands into the lights.

And if you're planning to use a Wiska box, they can be a pain to fit glands to, particularly SWA ones, because they have internal ribs which get in the way of the locknuts.

 

[electronicsuk]

so I was thinking along the same lines also im not sure if its better to run from light to light or to run each light individually form the supply box that will be mounted in a wooden post in the garden (assuming I have the room for two connections on the fitting?)

I guess it depends on where everything is in relation to each other, and how much freedom you want to move things around.

I had a similar sort of setup at a previous house. I had 6x spotlights that accepted GU5.3 reflector lamps, which I replaced with LEDs and then wired all six of them back to a weatherproof adaptable JB with six plastic compression glands and an incoming SWA cable/gland.

The fittings came pre-wired with a few metres of H07, and although it wasn't ideal, it would have been impossible to change this for anything else due to the sealed nature of the lights. I ended up running the flex on the surface of the (raised) flower bed, and then putting a few bark chippings on top. Technically it was buried and probably should have been in SWA, but there's not a lot you can do in these sort of situations short of metal conduit, which would seem overkill.