UKH

So I'm trying to DIY a new outdoor light for my decking. I've no electrical experience but I recently built a new computer so not being completely incompetent I thought I'd give it a go. I bought a 30w LED outdoor light and a plug. 30w to my maths is 0.125A so I got a 3A plug, and wired it in. I went to test it and the light just began to illuminate, there was a faint pop, and it now does nothing.

I triple checked my wiring of the plug before testing so I don't think it can be that. I figure either somehow I've fried the light or its popped the fuse (which it shouldn't have done). 

Help!!!

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

Link to the light? Was it a mains light or DC.

In reply to Philip:

 https://amzn.eu/d/ftM94Gm

It doesnt explicitly say anywhere about power requirements anywhere, it just has a brown live, green and yellow earth and a blue neutral wire exposed at the end. I simply wired it to the plug as I figured it had the adapter in the light?

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

Looking at the crapazon link, I think you've just chucked some cash down the drain.

In reply to Maggot:

Are you saying I wired it correctly but the light sucks? What makes you think its a bad choice? Alternative brand suggestions? 

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

It looks like a standard cheap PIR lamp, I have something similar (which I had to repair after a year or two ). It should work the way you wired it. If it doesn't, send it back.  

In reply to Hooo:

Appreciate the feedback. Lamp feels solidly made, but I guess it's faulty. I just watched a video of a chap who wired his up to a 3 pin just like me and it worked fine so I guess it really is the light. 

Back it goes!

  In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:  Page 3, Earth: GY, OK. N,Blue, OK.  Live/Line, Red!  Chinese tat which will just end up in landfill when you send it back.   Amazon   crap

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

With cheap stuff like this, half the time they won't even ask you to send it back, cos that just means they have to pay the postage. Items like this don't even get tested after manufacture. The Amazon seller just buys them from the factory in lots of a few thousand, and they factor a percentage of failures into their profit margin.

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant: go to Screwfix instead next time

In reply to kevin stephens:

All this anti China stuff is pretty old fashioned. Are all the floodlights sold in Screwfix, all sold for the same prices, all made in the UK? 

If someone can show me a genuine difference between a Screwfix light and and Amazon light I'm all ears, but it just seems like fearmongering. 

There really doesn't seem to be a reputable brand of garden floodlight from what I can see, just a saturated market of Chinese copies. If anyone can recommend a brand, as stated before, please do!

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant: calm down, where did I express an anti China sentiment? Its just that in my experience any goods sold by Screwfix meet a minimum quality standard, whether they are made in China or anywhere else. They also have a no quibble return policy

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

Should have worked fine, even though normally they would be wired into a circuit, rather than using a plug.

Try the Luceco ones from Screwfix - I've fitted 2 of those without issue.

Another Luceco one that I got from Wickes packed up after a few months, but was replaced by them under warranty.

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

I'm not sure why you've gone off on one about "anti-China stuff"

Yes, the Screwfix lights are likely made in China but you'll get a 3 year warranty and an instruction manual for a similar price to what you paid on Amazon.  Contractors aren't going to want to keep getting called to things they've fitted and keep breaking.

In reply to mik82:

I think it's quite obvious what everyone is implying when they talk about 'Chinese tat', 'crapazon', 'cheap stuff', bought in bulk from 'the factory'.

I visit trade shops a lot and most of the stuff in there is pretty cheap, about as mass produced as you can get. 

I'm not hyping Amazon, far from it. But the idea that a product from them is worse than a trade store simply because it's from them is just unfounded. 

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

Probably just a duff light but have you checked the pir settings?
potentially could have illuminated on plug in, then the ‘pop’ you heard was the contact closure as the pir timed out?
 

Probably not but worth a fiddle before the landfill option.

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

Also if you’re putting a plug top on, how and where are you plugging it in?

In reply to NorthernGrit:

Good thought, but I tried every setting, no dice. 

We have an outdoor shelter with existing outdoor plugs set up. Will just mount it to the top beam and plug it in basically.

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

You said above: "It doesnt explicitly say anywhere about power requirements anywhere, it just has a brown live, green and yellow earth and a blue neutral wire exposed at the end."

And indeed it doesn't, the Amazon page you linked to simply says "AC" without specifying the actual voltage or power requirement. That's really poor practice from a retailer selling you an electrical appliance, unacceptable really.

You asked for a difference between Screwfix and Amazon - there's one: if you'd bought it from Screwfix you would have known that.

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

I afraid it's not unfounded. Places like Screwfix and CPC sell cheap Chinese stuff, but they do actually make some effort to make sure it's of reasonable quality, as they have a reputation to protect. Amazon and eBay are awash with sellers who don't give a f**k, and will sell any tat regardless of whether it's even legal.

Chinese products are not necessarily bad, but they span the whole range from dangerously illegal to high quality. If you go to a reputable supplier, they will filter out some of the worst crap for you.

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

I've used these guys over many years. No problems at all, Uk based company.

https://www.gardenlightshop.com/

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

What popped? I assume from the numbers here we're talking 230Vac and that the lamp is intended for mains service.

Most likely the fuse blew due to inrush current. Incandescent lightbulbs (remember them) and LEDs (for different reasons) draw a very high current briefly when they start. With LEDs there is an AC/DC power supply between the mains and the LEDs, it has capacitors which look like a short circuit, briefly, when you connect them It can be enough to pop fuses that should easily hold the current. You can buy slow/delay fuses to manage this but in this case I'd just fit a bigger fuse so long as it's appropriate for the lamp and flex.

I am a bit puzzled by the idea of an outside light which you plug in, is it temporary? If not, take care with how the cable is secured into it and how it passes through the wall to avoid water ingress along the cable. Also suggest you get an RCD outlet/plug if the house doesn't have an RCD already.

Alsso possible you mixed up live and neutral, it shouldn't make a difference functionally but you never quite know what the power supply circuit will be.

Also possible the lamp was low voltage/DC only (unlikely but you didn't mention a source/part) or it was just a dud.

Most likely the fuse and inrush current. After you've checked your wiring put a 13A fuse in it and see if it works.

jk

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

No and often they're still quite poor quality but when you buy them from a known store you at least have some reassurance as to who you're dealing with, that they're not actively evading trading standards, that what they're selling at least has the right approvals on paper, that products with terrible returns rates will get pulled to preserve reputation, that unsafe products get recalled.

There is a lot of electrical crap available at the click of a mouse, some of it unsafe. Frankly unless you have a company with a reputation to preserve to go back to if it fails you just don't know what you're getting, it's all built to a cost but some is ok, some is dire.

There's no such thing as either, they sell a range of products some branded, most un/own-branded. What you get is some accountability with Screwfix et al, with Amazon, Ali etc you could be dealing with Delboy's Chinese cousin trading junk out of a lockup garage or you could be dealing with a serious company that takes quality, safety and value seriously, you will never know until something goes wrong. Sometimes that's ok, sometimes you get burned, hopefully just metaphorically.

jk

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

I think the real problem with eBay and Amazon is they contain a lot of products that are rejected by named suppliers and get sold in bulk on Alibaba. 

The shops you then see on eBay etc buy these dodgy items in bulk and the shop name will only exist until they get rid of their cheap stock and fold after.

But eBay etc will also contain some great sellers, but it's really hard to tell which is which. I will often take a gamble if it's somehting I don't mind failing. The whole buy cheap buy twice can actually be cheaper if you're selective about what you choose to buy.

Have you tried replacing the fuse? 3A is good for 700W so it's pointless trying a bigger one. One tip, only buy fuses from reputable sources. The junk on eBay may be scam products and the internals offer a rating nowhere near what it says on the tin. Quite a dangerous cost saving to buy cheap fuses.

In reply to jkarran:

Yes by buying from a UK retailer (Screwfix, CEF, wicks, B&Q etc) you can be confident that the product meets the appropriate CE* standards.

* or whatever the post Brexit equivalent is.

And as others have said even own brand or unbranded products bought direct from a UK retailer come with at least a basic guarantee, so should they be defective you can get your money back relatively easily.

In reply to Hooo:

There's several YouTube channels mostly showing how poor cheap imported electrical items from eBay or Amazon can be, including air ionizers or rechargable lamps which have exposed parts connected directly to mains voltage!

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

Update: So I ordered different light from 'crapazon' (wasnt happy with the features on the lights in all the big stores), wired it up and nothing worked - must have been the fuse all along. So I changed the fuse to another 3A and the new light worked perfectly, installed it, all good. 

Out of curiosity I got another plug and 3A fuse for the light I was going to return, wired it up, works fine! Ironically, for whatever reason it was the fused plug I bought from Wickes that caused all the issues. 

jkarran's advice to check the fuses was what I should have done first and saved all the confusion. I still don't know if the fuse was faulty or whether the light really did have a 3A+ inrush (24x what it should have been), I guess we'll never know. 

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

I once encountered an equipment with a test fuse button that shorted the supply.  If the fuse blew it had been a good one.

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

Maybe, maybe not. If you buy stuff you need to sell it for more to make a profit.. not rocket science. BUT... I looked at Amazon, with a view of opening an Amazon based shop. Especially if I could get delivery to Amazon and sell from Amazon so never have to handle any goods myself.

For that to work as part of it you'd need "FBA" (fulfilled by Amazon). For FBA to work you need to sell for at least 2.5 times what you bought it for, preferably 3x that. This is more than markup you'd see in say a normal outdoors retailer.

This is why Amazon is swamped with mis-sold low-cost low-quality goods. For example carabiners described for "Climbing, camping, repelling (sic), caving, hammocks, caving, rescue, dog walking" and designated "unisex", that are suitable as a sturdy key fob.

It's not the fault of China but rather this is a consequence of Amazon economics, which gives the advantage to cheap junk sold in volume, over reputable equipment. 

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

I'm very happy for you, but if I was paid to inspect it, I'd fail it on non compliant wiring colours even before examining it further. And why would a brand new item blow the fuse on first use?

Tat 😂

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

I’ve now installed 4 external lights with PIR’s from this place:

https://www.thesolarcentre.co.uk/

No wires, no running costs. Haven’t scoured their site for simple switched lights (probly don’t want PIR’s for your patio lights) but so far they’ve been completely reliable so maybe worth a look.

In reply to owlart:

Big Clive is one of my favourites. 

Amazon is rapidly turning in to a UK version of Aliexpress but with a premium price. 

In reply to colinakmc:

I put a solar light up 4 or 5 years ago, thd pannel is seperate to thef light and has quite a long cable but that works for us because the house keeps the actual light in the shade. 

It didn't work at first but then I read the instructions that said leave it in the sun for a full day before turning it on for thd first time and it still works well now