LED Landscape Lighting Retrofit in Calabasas California

05 Aug LED Landscape Lighting Retrofit in Calabasas California

By Mike Gambino

We recently completed a 54 lamp LED retrofit of a halogen system that Gambino landscape lighting company installed 6 years ago. The project was pretty routine except for one string of 4 fixtures that began to flicker when they had their halogen lamps removed and replaced with LED bulbs.

This is the first time we’ve ever experienced anything like this and immediately we went into trouble shooting mode. Even though our voltage and amperage tests detected no irregularities I immediately suspected that the homerun power cable had been damaged. To verify my hunch we located and dug up the homerun cable which brings power from the transformer to the first fixture. We then disconnected the load wires one by one observing the lamps which continued to flicker. So we knew at this time that the problem was in the homerun and not the secondary feeder cables.

Just to be absolutely sure we ran a temporary new cable directly from the transformer to the homerun fixture and connected it in place of the existing homerun. The LED’s no longer flickered so my hunch had been correct.

Now it was just a matter of finding the break in the cable. We searched around at the path of where I remembered burying the cable looking for a location where there had been some disruption or digging done. When this system was installed we were not installing our cable in protective conduit. There was no apparent disruption evident.

So we began pulling the cable out of the ground. Luckily the cable had been buried where there were no trees so it came up relatively easy. About 30 feet from the fixtures we found the problem. Someone had severed the cable and attempted to repair it with black electrical tape.

This is the worst kind of damage because it can go undetected for months or years until it becomes evident there’s a problem and then it can be difficult to find.

Once we made the repair the problem immediately went away and we were well on our way to another successful LED retrofit job and a happy log time client who will now be able to realize the electrical savings and other benefits of Gambino LED landscape lighting.

There are a few takeaways from this experience.

1-      LED bulbs are electronic in nature and much more susceptible to voltage irregularities and cable faults

2-      Installing power cable inside rigid electrical conduit can prevent most situations like this

3-      22 years of field experience when you think you’ve seen it all, I continue to learn something new

4-      Proper troubleshooting techniques without skipping any steps or making assumptions and not keeping an open mind leads to a quicker and proper repair while being a good steward of a clients finances as they are paying for time spent troubleshooting and repairing.

This landscape lighting blog is published by Mike Gambino of Gambino landscape lighting inc. all rights reserved. Mike is a professional landscape lighting system designer/ builder and has been designing, installing and maintaining landscape lighting systems for more than 20 years. Mike resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 2 sons. To visit his website go to www.gambinolighting.com . To inquire about hiring Mike please click here .

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