Kitchen Cabinet Lights With no Earth.

[Lennox Gilbey]

Hi all.

I went to change a bulb in my kitchen cabinet lights recently. I pulled the unit out and as you can see a lot of burned crap came with it. The lights only have brown and blue wires and run up into the transformer pictured.

I want to replace both lights and was going to get the one pictured from Amazon. Can I do a straight swap and depend on the existing transformer?

I am concerned at how these lights have burned so instead of a DIY swap out, would I be better off getting in an electrician to wire in an earth?

 

[terryplumb]

The " universo" spotlight is NOT a direct replacement ,it is for connection to mains voltage . Your existing light is connected to the transformer which reduces the voltage to around 12 volts.
The " burnt" fitting is a bit of a concern ,and you would be well advised to engage an electrician to check them out / replace as necessary.

 

[Astra99]

Your existing lights are operating at 12V AC. They do not require require earthing as the power supply is "double insulated" - see the "square within a square" on the power supply itself. I would suspect the reason for burning is too high a wattage lamp has been installed at some time in the past. My suggestion would to be replace all the existing lights with LEDs; if you want to continue to use ELV (12V) lights, then that would also require a new power supply unit. If you change to mains voltage lights, then they need to be connected direct to the the mains feed to your existing power supply. If you are not confident to do this, then ask an electrician to do the job for you.

 

[ericmark]

@Astra99 is correct, the old 12 volt (extra low voltage lights) are well know for getting a poor connection and burning out the holder, a 60W lamp is running 5 amp, the 230 volt (low voltage) needs an earth, so although with LED lights there is often no reason why we need extra low voltage we are often stuck with it as it would need rewiring with an earth even if the earth is not used. The electronic transformer you show is marked 20 - 60 watt, which means it is too big for LED, toroidal transformers give out 50 Hz and go from zero to rated output, so this one

will work both LED and tungsten, however it is 63 mm diameter so may not fit in the hole, many MR16 replacement LED lights are marked 50 Hz so this is the right thing, but this one will also likely work as rated zero to 50 watt and is small enough to fit through the hole, also a 12 volt (driver) will also likely work, but be careful it is constant voltage as true drivers are constant current and are no good for you. I use toroidal transformer because I have some in stock, and electronic transformers and drivers can cause radio interference, but in spite of a 12 volt driver not really being the right thing to use, I personally would use a driver rather than an electronic transformer simply because the electronic transformers have been known to interfere with radios. But if I could get an earth to the lamp, then I would use low voltage 230 volt GU10 lamps. Well I don't like spot lights in the main, but if using a spot light then the GU10 is likely the best option.

 

[Lennox Gilbey]

Thanks for the replies so far. I was looking at LEDs and frankly I'm open to any ideas. It is just a display cabinet (old pic below) so I don't need the brightness for a work area.



Another pic of the old job and as you can see, the cord grip is broken and burnt on the opposite side to where it's wired... Answers on a postcard.



So... Another option is to get back to the original idea and try for a straight swap and the light pictured is hard wired already with a plug on the end that will go into the existing transformer.




Thanks again.

 

[flameport]

Two options - replace that light with a direct equivalent, or replace the whole lot with LED and a suitable transformer.

 

[muggles]

Something like these would probably suit you, nice and easy to install and not at all expensive
https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/LTCL1W.html