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Garden Lights x 2 into one FCU?

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 8:23 am
by casman77
Hi,

I'm hoping you can answer this quick question for me.

I have a 150W twin (75W each) security spot light with PIR fitted to the side of my garage to provide light down the side of my house. This connection goes into a switched FCU in my garage. The electrician who fitted this said he put the FCU in so I could override the PIR facility by switching on and off quickly.

So my question...... I want to add a second small (150W) security light with PIR to the back of my garage to provide light to the rest of my garden.

Am I ok to run the second light directly into the same FCU? So two lights would run from the one FCU

What fuse should I use in the FCU, the current fuse is 13A - I believe this to be too high? But the electrician did this!

The cable size for the twin light is a 1.5mm twin and earth so I am going to use the same for this new light.

Both lights are same make (from B & Q) and run at 150W - the only difference being that the first one is a twin @ 75W each

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Regards
CASMAN

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 8:33 pm
by sparx
quite ok but you are correct the fuse should be 5amp which will allow up to around 1200 watts of lighting but halogen types have large 'inrush' ie starting current from cold so probably best not to go more than 500w total on fcu, you do of coarse know that electrical work outside is covered under bldg regs part p ie needs to be done by registered sparks and notified to local authority,
SPARX