tvi675 Posted August 26, 2007 Share Posted August 26, 2007 Hi everyone, I've been asked to build a controller for a couple of 4 colour rope lights and was wondering if anyone here can shed some light on the wiring of these things. They are terminated with six pin connectors (although judging by the state of them and the large amount of insulation tape it looks like a home-made job) and have 9 wires going through them. 2 for each colour and a thicker black wire. Of the two wires for each colour, there is a thinner wire which is connects all of the bulbs in series and a thicker wire which from looking at it appears to not be connected to anything. There is also a wire which connects the black wire to the spare pin on the connector. My questions are this: Is the apparently unconnected wire really unconnected, and what is it there for? Is it likely that these rope lights will run off mains AC or some kind of DC voltage (in which case I assume that the black wire is either neutral or 0v??), and what is the point in commoning the two pins on the connector with the grey wire? Rope lights most definitely are not creatures I understand so thank you all for your help! :) Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paradoxism Posted August 26, 2007 Share Posted August 26, 2007 Hi Matt, Whilst this is obviously not a conclusive answer, it sounds very similar to an old rope light that I had years ago. It looked like a corrugated clear(ish) tube with the four sets of bulbs running through it. It was originally designed for use with a light controller that had an old bulgin conector on it (the large circular ones) and as such ran off 240V. Those also had 6 pin connectors which were one common and the rest live points, one for each colour. From memory it also had the pointless wire running down the centre connected to the spare and I think it was there as an earth wire for chaining multiple units together in case there was any exposed metalwork on the later runs. Either way by the sound of it they are likely just to be filament lamps inside if they are of any age and as such will be happy if you start testing it with a low AC supply and if there is no response by the time you get to about 12-15V then they will more than likely be 240V per channel. Jut make sure you have a supply that can give them sufficient current at the low voltages. I'll have a dig around in the loft and see if I can find it so that I can be a bit more use! Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvi675 Posted August 27, 2007 Author Share Posted August 27, 2007 They do sound like they might be the same one - from what I understand these are quite old rope lights, and look like they might have been one at some point and later been split into two. I'll try them out at low AC voltages and see what happens. Thanks for the advice! Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Beesley Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 Hi Matt, It sounds like the old SoundLAB roplight from Electrovision... they used a 6-pin lead to Bulginhttp://www.electrovision.co.uk/Images/pictures_th/G_jpegs/G006MA.jpg Available here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvi675 Posted August 28, 2007 Author Share Posted August 28, 2007 It sounds like the old SoundLAB roplight from Electrovision... they used a 6-pin lead to Bulginhttp://www.electrovision.co.uk/Images/pictures_th/G_jpegs/G006MA.jpg Those would be the exact connectors! Thanks for that, I think the problem is solved :) Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.