The power supply is what runs your low voltage system. The size and capacity of your power supply determines how many lights can be placed on your system.
The low voltage power supply also contains the timer that controls when your lights turn off or on. Most timers will have 1 or more time settings to allow you to have a few different off and on settings. So you could have your lights come on in the evening, then off later at night, and then maybe come on early in the morning again and then off.
Some power supplies can also be set to run from a photo sensor. This makes the on and off time settings fully automatic. This can be very nice since it never needs to be adjusted for the changing seasons.
The idea behind low voltage landscape lighting is not to illuminate your entire landscape, but to provide nice accent lighting on the highlights of your landscape.
Items such as trees, rocks, and walkways are ideal candidates for a low voltage lighting system.
How to get started?
Getting started with low voltage lighting is simple. You only need 4 items to get your low voltage system up and running.
- Power
- Transformer
- Wire
- Lights
The basic premise behind low voltage lighting is taking a standard house-hold voltage from 120 volts and reducing it down to a 12 volt system. This voltage reduction by the transformer does a number of important tasks. 12 volt is much safer to work than a full 120 volts. 12 volts also produces a nicer aesthetic lighting for your landscape.
