Outdoor light wiring

Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2012
Posts
10,082
Location
West Sussex, England
Changing our outdoor PIR lantern and the developers as usual didn't leave very much length to the wiring. I've got just enough to bring it inside the light housing which I've terminated for now into a terminal block strip. This is 3 core and earth cable but is there a way to know whether it's 1.0mm or 1.5mm cores? The house is about 10 years old, would it be common for it to be one type over the other?
 
It won't matter unless your putting some really high power light or something?

Assuming your using an LED light they hardly use any juice youll get away with more or less whatever.
 
Why do you need to know?
There would generally be no *need* for a lighting cirucit in a house to be in 1.5mm, 1mm would be fine just about all of the time, so if everyone was being hammered down on price then it would be expected that its 1mm, although some guys do have a bit of an adversion to going smaller than 1.5mm
The earth on 1.5mm will still be 1mm as it is with 1mm, so compare the copper core between live and earth, if different its 1.5mm if the same its 1mm
Or get a pair of verniers and break out the high school maths!
 
Use wagos or push connectors to extend and not terminal blocks.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/ideal-32a-2-way-push-wire-connector-100-pack/72727
They're not IP rated so if you don't "seal" it in the light casing thatll end up causing problems.


Depending in what your light looks like you might be able to use something like this?
https://www.screwfix.com/p/hylec-teetube-mini-2-entry-3-pole-in-line-cable-joint/81353

I appreciate if its particularly decorative you'd want to avoid this.
 
The join is inside the light housing which being an outside light is IP rated as you'd expect. I was just going to stick with the extra terminal block strip for the join since the final termination is into one also, but I've decided to give those Ideal 2-way push connectors a whirl as that reduces my chances of terminal block issues down to just the final termination.
 
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