Just moved to a new house with a pool in november. The pool hasnt been opened for two years so I thought I would get a head start before it started getting warm enough for the algea to start blowing up. The water was dark green when I started but now thanks to this site I have the water almost clear. What I have come to find (since I can now see deeper than 6 inches) is I have three pool lights that dont work and need to change out bulbs. I have taken the screws out and popped off the retainer ring but cant seem to get the lights to come out of the walls. Is anyone familiar with these types of lights and what it takes to change them.
pool light help
- Thread starter Mdnester
- Start date
That looks like a filberstars lens. If so the lamp isn't in there. Is there a large box near the pad or behind the lights?
If it's a fiberstars, there will be a bundle of fibers inside that lens. Can you actually see a lamp in there?
How large is that fitting?
How large is that fitting?
I cant see a bulb or anything in there. If I take the plasic ring off the outside there is just a small round center thats about 1 or1 1/4" in in diameter. It fits very snug into the side of the pool.
If it's a fiberstars that lens actually unscrews. You don't want to do that, if it is.
Is there a junction box behind where the light is?
Is there a junction box behind where the light is?
If there is its under concrete decking. After you said it looked like fiber optics I looked around where the pool light switch is and found two small conduit pipes leading down into the ground that have thick black cables inside. They say jandy lumenyte fiber optic. They of course are cut at ground level so thats pretty awesome!
Yep, they're fiber optics. Put the screws back in it and everything back together. You can't do anything from in the pool. Is just the conduits cut off or the fiber bundles too?
That's a bummer.
You can replace the fiber bundles but they're pretty expensive. Do a little searching the web for an idea how.
You can replace the fiber bundles but they're pretty expensive. Do a little searching the web for an idea how.
Bama Rambler said:
What about splicing in a new fiber line and light source?
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Fib ... ing-Cable/
Not sure if it's the same but the I.T. Guys at work splice fiber cable at work all the time and I'm sure data splicing has to be harder than just lighting?
To make sure it works, take a bright light (i.e. flashlight) and shine it in the end of the bundle and see if you can see the light in the pool. It won't be as bright as it should be, but you should be able to see light through it.
Splicing may work, it won't be quite as bright as if it weren't spliced but it should work.
Splicing may work, it won't be quite as bright as if it weren't spliced but it should work.
4knights said:
Splicing fiber is splicing fiber. Just be careful as fiber can break easy if you are rough with it.
I just watched that video and I don't think that will help. That is some pretty thick fiber cable. Plus you are going to want to make sure it is sealed from the weather if you do splice it.
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Data splicing involves individual fibers and generally there's not many of them in a typical IT environment. The splicing uses a sleeve to support the splice, kinda like the way a wire splice requires a crimp sleeve that is generally larger in diameter than the original wire.
The light cable on the pool is a fiber bundle composed of possibly hundreds of fibers bundled together. If you used the same techniques telecom/data folks use, the finished splice job would be feet in diameter and take many, many hours to accomplish.
That's not to say you couldn't make a homemade bundle splice by casting two bundles together using a plastic pipe for support but you have to buy the part of the bundle that's now missing and it would have a lot of light loss (>50%) due to the splice.
I think the only realistic way to fix this is to replace the bundles with original style parts.
I was gonna suggest maybe drain the pool below the lights and replace the light with something easier to fix or try replacing the bundle. How hard would it be to get to the end of the bundle to hook it back up. I think it is just to big to splice but on the other hand the telco company installs big fiber bundles and if one is cut they would have to splice it somehow. Still I am gonna say it fiber is fiber and no matter how it is spliced it is not always a easy process.
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Yeah I did the 18v led super bright light in the dark on those fiber cables and they did nothing at the light end. I did find the conduit that goes to the light under the diving board. It just comes out of the ground about 5 feet past the pool decking behind the diving board. I can tell it goes to the light because it has a slow dripping leak coming out of it. I am assuming this was caused from me trying to pull what looked like a light out of the wall. I think my best bet would be to drain the pool down to the lights and put updated lights in where the old fiber lights were. I also have no idea where the electric goes from the light switch. It goes down into the ground up by the pump and on to the abyss!
What you can do is once you drain the pool you could hook up the electrical to what is called a fox and hound. The fox emits a tone and the hound emits the tone once found. You could either start at the light end or start at the switch and trace that way it would tell you which lines are for which light.
This is what a fox and hound looks like.
http://www.amazon.com/Triplett-3399-Fox-Hound-Probe/dp/B001ULPREW
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This is what a fox and hound looks like.
http://www.amazon.com/Triplett-3399-Fox-Hound-Probe/dp/B001ULPREW
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A tracer won't work for the lights as there is no power or metal wiring going to the lights. It's just the fiber bundle. Also replacing the light with something besides fiber is going to be more problem than you think. A standard light won't fit that niche and as said, there's no power to it.
This is true. I am so used to things having a power source it is easy to forget fiber just uses light as its power. Do you think they might have a adapter out there to replace those with led?
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