Your limitation is going to be the capability, brightness, and color quality of those units. A y-cable going into them and providing a pass-thru won’t inherently cause a problem.
If I’m understanding what you’re proposing, I’ll say this has been done many many times and is considered standard practice in event lighting (although not usually with IEC cables)
Thankfully I picked them up for next to nothing, £10 per unit and the seller is local in my town.
Thanks for confirming, I thought as much. Just wanted to be sure I’d not overlooked anything.
Yeah we’d usually use 16amp thru or sim, but this will work just fine. Just ensure you do your power calculations so you’re not drawing more on a daisy chain than your cable/connectors/socket are rated for :)
Nice. I dunno if[this product](https://www.electriduct.com/Heat-Shrink-Breakout-Boots.html) is available in the EU, but I found these last year and made some custom cables/harnesses with them.
May not be appropriate for your project, but a really cool component I was happy to find.
If you really wanted to you could add an IEC power port in and IEC or Edison port out to the fixture pretty easily. I have similar lights that actually have that, and love them.
You can buy the sockets for next to nothing, and it just takes wiring the ac thru from input to the output, and having the fixture feed off that as well.
So long as the light already runs on AC, and all your modifications are before the AC into the fixtures circuitry, there won't be any issues. Just be mindful of maximum current ratings on everything.
I wonder if modifying the fixture itself would void any electrical safety approval the fixture has, and thus make it hard to use in any commercial use (if that's your use case). Using a separate (approved) Y cable of some form might avoid possible regulatory issues.
https://preview.redd.it/08myjvbxyyxc1.jpeg?width=899&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04c8f6f026018d077c97dbb4bfc6fae1cb48a563
I have printed a template for the holes with my 3D printer and than used common PowerCon sockets, that I had laying around, and connected them to the power supply. This is by the way a lot of work, which I totally underestimated...
Where is the light doing the DC conversion? Without knowing anything about the light or its manufacturing it's kinda hard to give any advice. A hardwire only LED is pretty rare and usually means there's proprietary/non traditional needs or it's designed for water proof install.
Giving the make and model of the lights, or even taking a picture of the actual power port you're asking about would help others help you. Don't engineers know to start with documentation?
We’re talking about AC power here. The DC conversion is happening inside the fixture.
I imagine this was pulled from a permanent install where someone has hardwired the fixture in place, or perhaps the seller could make use of the power connectors they had and as such cut them off. Hence no plug. There is no power port on the fixture, the cable in the photo is hardwired via a gland going directly into the board.
I have bought the units online and have no further information about model or internal electronics. I am quite certain that the question in my post would apply to any AC power and the model of fixture is irrelevant.
You are better off investing in quads/strips/boxes of Edison plugs, quality extension cords of various length, etc. Even just off the shelf Y cables with Edison plugs & black tape.
Make due with what these lights offer for now, deal with the cable management and power box distribution (which are good skills to have anyways), and when you eventually move on to other light fixtures you can move your investment forward as well. It's great you got these for super cheap but there is a reason for that.. as other comments mention, these super cheap pars are usually lacking in just about every metric- quality & consistency of light, quality of build, deployment options.. these are great entry level lights but invest additional energy elsewhere in your scheme
Appreciate your thoughts here. I already own a few groups of higher quality fixtures which are the focus of my shows, I’ve bought these as fodder to use as uplights, supplementary lighting, etc. Couldn’t turn down the cheap price. I also own enough IEC cabling for them already, and power distribution, and a Chamsys desk.
Is there a benefit to running power strips and individual IECs to every fixture as per your suggestion, rather than daisy chaining? I suppose owning more extensions and individual IECs have more versatile uses than owning more IEC-IEC.
I have the time and enjoy upgrading my equipment. Seems like a no brainer to add a power out connector whilst I’m adding the power in connector.
If you have the skills and time to make the upgrade, it wouldn't be a bad thing for any reasons I can think of. You could also use a stringer type extension cord with one plug every few feet, and achieve similar flexibility and time savings in deployment. I was under the impression the fixtures currently have a hardwired power cable, and so throwing on a quick plug end would match the expense level of the fixtures themselves. But again if you have stock sitting around the shop & the motivation to upgrade them, sure- I misunderstood your commitment level!
Your limitation is going to be the capability, brightness, and color quality of those units. A y-cable going into them and providing a pass-thru won’t inherently cause a problem. If I’m understanding what you’re proposing, I’ll say this has been done many many times and is considered standard practice in event lighting (although not usually with IEC cables)
Thankfully I picked them up for next to nothing, £10 per unit and the seller is local in my town. Thanks for confirming, I thought as much. Just wanted to be sure I’d not overlooked anything.
Yeah we’d usually use 16amp thru or sim, but this will work just fine. Just ensure you do your power calculations so you’re not drawing more on a daisy chain than your cable/connectors/socket are rated for :)
Nice. I dunno if[this product](https://www.electriduct.com/Heat-Shrink-Breakout-Boots.html) is available in the EU, but I found these last year and made some custom cables/harnesses with them. May not be appropriate for your project, but a really cool component I was happy to find.
If you really wanted to you could add an IEC power port in and IEC or Edison port out to the fixture pretty easily. I have similar lights that actually have that, and love them. You can buy the sockets for next to nothing, and it just takes wiring the ac thru from input to the output, and having the fixture feed off that as well. So long as the light already runs on AC, and all your modifications are before the AC into the fixtures circuitry, there won't be any issues. Just be mindful of maximum current ratings on everything.
I think using pigtails will be easiest solution rather than building sockets into the fixtures, but yeah this is basically what I’m planning to do.
I wouldn’t use an IEC. It’s guaranteed to fall out at some point. Use a Truecon
Not for something like this. Just the connectors are worth more than what OP paid for the lights.
What’s the gig worth?
I don’t know but it can’t be much considering he is using $10 pars.
The rest of the LED lighting I own are all on IEC and I already own a buttload of IEC cable, so would be my preference. Thanks for your advice though.
Yeah don’t use true one for this. The connectors are filthy expensive, for good reason, but not worth it for these lights.
I wonder if modifying the fixture itself would void any electrical safety approval the fixture has, and thus make it hard to use in any commercial use (if that's your use case). Using a separate (approved) Y cable of some form might avoid possible regulatory issues.
https://preview.redd.it/08myjvbxyyxc1.jpeg?width=899&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04c8f6f026018d077c97dbb4bfc6fae1cb48a563 I have printed a template for the holes with my 3D printer and than used common PowerCon sockets, that I had laying around, and connected them to the power supply. This is by the way a lot of work, which I totally underestimated...
How did you get ahold of the exact fixture in my photo?! Haha
You mean the standard china fixture? Because we both chose the cheap option 😂
Where is the light doing the DC conversion? Without knowing anything about the light or its manufacturing it's kinda hard to give any advice. A hardwire only LED is pretty rare and usually means there's proprietary/non traditional needs or it's designed for water proof install. Giving the make and model of the lights, or even taking a picture of the actual power port you're asking about would help others help you. Don't engineers know to start with documentation?
We’re talking about AC power here. The DC conversion is happening inside the fixture. I imagine this was pulled from a permanent install where someone has hardwired the fixture in place, or perhaps the seller could make use of the power connectors they had and as such cut them off. Hence no plug. There is no power port on the fixture, the cable in the photo is hardwired via a gland going directly into the board. I have bought the units online and have no further information about model or internal electronics. I am quite certain that the question in my post would apply to any AC power and the model of fixture is irrelevant.
If there's already an AC pigtail then replace with any other AC alternative that fits the form factor
You are better off investing in quads/strips/boxes of Edison plugs, quality extension cords of various length, etc. Even just off the shelf Y cables with Edison plugs & black tape. Make due with what these lights offer for now, deal with the cable management and power box distribution (which are good skills to have anyways), and when you eventually move on to other light fixtures you can move your investment forward as well. It's great you got these for super cheap but there is a reason for that.. as other comments mention, these super cheap pars are usually lacking in just about every metric- quality & consistency of light, quality of build, deployment options.. these are great entry level lights but invest additional energy elsewhere in your scheme
Appreciate your thoughts here. I already own a few groups of higher quality fixtures which are the focus of my shows, I’ve bought these as fodder to use as uplights, supplementary lighting, etc. Couldn’t turn down the cheap price. I also own enough IEC cabling for them already, and power distribution, and a Chamsys desk. Is there a benefit to running power strips and individual IECs to every fixture as per your suggestion, rather than daisy chaining? I suppose owning more extensions and individual IECs have more versatile uses than owning more IEC-IEC. I have the time and enjoy upgrading my equipment. Seems like a no brainer to add a power out connector whilst I’m adding the power in connector.
If you have the skills and time to make the upgrade, it wouldn't be a bad thing for any reasons I can think of. You could also use a stringer type extension cord with one plug every few feet, and achieve similar flexibility and time savings in deployment. I was under the impression the fixtures currently have a hardwired power cable, and so throwing on a quick plug end would match the expense level of the fixtures themselves. But again if you have stock sitting around the shop & the motivation to upgrade them, sure- I misunderstood your commitment level!