Junction boxes in the roof space

[ians]

I have a task of about 500 light connection to sort out. At the moment the connection are just twisted together with screwits and taped. My thought is to save me having to fit a 3 or 4 way box for each and every single downlight fitting, just fitting a spazio 230 volt downlight connection, the reason for this is to save on 2 connections, 1 at a 3 or 4 way box and secondly to save another connection at the downlight. The spazio 230 downlight connection has enough space to fit 2 cables as opposed to the other brands which only have enough space for cable. This will sort out both problems being the illegal 230 lamp holder used at present and the junction box issue. Then the next step is to decide which 230 led lamp to use, to replace the 50watt 230 lamps used at the moment.

[Justloadit]

LED down lighters have a way to go with respect to their 50W counter part incandescent.
There are 2 types dimable and non-dimable. The dimable ones are expensive due to the more complex electronics required to make the LED dimable.
Currently the highest I found is a 4Watt non-dimable LED at R89 ex VAT each FOB Johannesburg - 12/11/2013

[AndyD]

To get asimilar light output to a 50w halogen dichroic you'll need at least a 7 watt LED equivalent. The last job we did where we need lots of similar lamps I imported Megaman 8watt directly which had the colour frequency and reflector angle we were looking for and they were rated to 50000 hours lifespan.

I'd caution you to be very careful with the specifications, some of the locally available offerings had lifespans as low as 10000 hours which is just over a year if they're on 24/7 in a shopping center.

[Justloadit]

Yes the other specification to look out for is "Lumens per watt". The low cost LEDS range between 60-80 Lumens per watt. The more expensive units can be as high as 120 Lumens per watt.

As a thumb suck figure, 12 wax candles is approximately 100 Lumens

[ELECT 1]

I agree, you cant go with less than 7w. If you do you will get less light and have to put in more fittings, so the extra spent on the 7w lamps should do it.

On the other hand, i think the cool white does seem to give more light than the warm light variants.
Cool white in a home, especially the lounge areas doesn't go down well, its too clinic looking.

Eskom supplied a free warm white dimmable, a brilliant one, same light (lumen) output as the 12v 50w Osram , but no name on the lamp.

So they are out there, we just dont get them, or not as quick as we should

[ians]

What do you think about using the roof space as a junction box and not installing boxes just screwits and tape? Seems to be the norm in the commercial field, 2 weeks ago a company installed new down lights and the connections in the roof space where done with screwits and tape. Nobody can produce a COC for the work done which doesn't surprise me, not that they are worth anything, I just need one for some work I did, I can just use the same COC to cover my work, nobody will know the difference.

[ELECT 1]

We use a draw box with proper connectors. Mostly a 4x4 PVC plug box and lid.
We also use these cheap PVC bulkhead light fittings for draw boxes. You can do a lot of connections in there and work easily

[Dave A]

What do you think about using the roof space as a junction box and not installing boxes just screwits and tape?

Or just declare the entire roof void a luminaire enclosure

I don't know how much of our income is bringing lighting wiring in roofs up to code, but I think it is fairly significant chunk of our income.