Why 2 circuit breakers for pool lights

[Davegnh]

I am trying to free up some spots in my easy touch control panel for an additional circuit breaker. And for some reason I have two circuit breakers for my lights. One is for the main pool lights and accents lights and the other is for bubble lights. The thing is I only have one transformer for the lights. I am a bit confused why it was wired this way. Thanks for any insight you can give me.

Dave

 

[Jimrahbe]

Dave,

Are you sure your pool lights are not 120 volt lights?

I suspect that the transformer is for your 12 volt bubbler light only.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I will say this - I would not use combination AFCI/GFCI breakers on anything. AFCI breakers can be subject to a lot of nuisance tripping and they are only necessary for interior structures to prevent things like electrical arcing inside a wall. Other than that, they are useless. GFCI protects against ground fault currents which is a human safety issue. However, the GFCI breaker on the 12V transformer is useless too - the primary and secondary windings on the transformer are isolated from one another and so a ground fault on the secondary (low voltage) side won’t be sensed by the GFI circuitry and a ground fault on the primary side is not a lethal to anyone. Those combo breakers are wicked-expensive and overkill for the application. CODE requires the use of GFCI on any pool lighting so it makes sense if you have a 120V pool light to have a GFCI breaker. AFCI is unnecessary there as well.

 

[Davegnh]

They are all low voltage led lights at least I think they are. Does pentair make line voltage LEDs? Looks like they do I had just assumed all LEDs were low voltage .

Pentair 601301 IntelliBrite 5G White Underwater LED Pool Light, 120 Volt, 50 Foot Cord, 500 Watt Equivalent

 

[Davegnh]

Those combo breakers are wicked-expensive and overkill for the application.
[/QUOTE]
The electrician wasn't cheap..... thanks for the info maybe I'll move these inside my house and change these for standard GFCI. My guess was this was a COVID substitution electrical was done in 2020 I remember them having issues just get in standard breakers.

 

[ajw22]

They are all low voltage led lights at least I think they are. Does pentair make line voltage LEDs? Looks like they do I had just assumed all LEDs were low voltage .

Pentair 601301 IntelliBrite 5G White Underwater LED Pool Light, 120 Volt, 50 Foot Cord, 500 Watt Equivalent

120V LED lights simply have a small transformer in the light.

The LEDs run on low voltage. It is just where the voltage is changed.

 

[Davegnh]

Thanks for the help.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

The electrician wasn't cheap..... thanks for the info maybe I'll move these inside my house and change these for standard GFCI. My guess was this was a COVID substitution electrical was done in 2020 I remember them having issues just get in standard breakers.

If your house was built after 2000 or so, then you probably have AFCI’s in the box somewhere. The most recent NEC code for homes is to have AFCI breakers on all lines in all rooms of the home (bedrooms, living rooms, etc) and GFCI breakers on all circuits in wet spaces (kitchens, bathrooms, etc). AFCI’s sense and prevent arcing between hot wires, often caused by nails or screws damaging the insulation in direct run cabling, which can cause wall fires. GFCI protects against electrical currents flowing outside of the intended circuit path such as with electrocution. AFCI breakers can often go bad easily and can be subject to nuisance tripping especially when large loads with in-rush currents are connected to them. The circuitry nowadays is a bit better at arc detection but it still gets fooled by certain types of devices. A standard single pole 20A AFCI can cost upwards of $50 … so electrical panels nowadays are practically gold mines. It’s very common to have service panels on the outside of homes here in AZ (stupid in my opinion but it’s ok by code) and I had a buddy who had his panel broken into while he was away on vacation and the thieves basically switched off the MAIN breaker and tore every CB out of the panel. Cut all the wiring too. Cost a lot of money to fix it all. He wouldn’t have known except for the fact that his cameras and smart devices went dead so he sent his parents to check it out. They discovered the damage. It was crazy. Now he keeps his panel locked.

 

[Davegnh]

Well my house was built in the '50s previous owner did an addition and redid the electrical box in 2002. When I moved in about 10 years ago I exchanged the box and all the breakers replaced due to water leaking in. Don't have a single AFCI in my house. We have very lax inspection standards in my town even if it was code in 2000 here. When they did the electrical inspection on my pool build the inspector just talked about how pretty the pool was and how he likes seeing all the features. Didn't even want to open the electrical box.

I had thought about changing a few critical circuits over to them but the cost stopped me from doing that.

It also looks like there's 12 volt and 120 volt versions of the main pentair pool lights and my builder just used the 120 volt for some reason when I had six other 12 volt lights going into the pool. Another head scratcher. I guess if and when the main pool LED lights fail I'll change them over to 12 volt versions and get rid of this extra circuit.....

I never heard of outdoor main electrical panels I'm guessing in most parts of the country where we get rain and snow probably not allowed. People sure do crappy things sorry about your friend.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

It also looks like there's 12 volt and 120 volt versions of the main pentair pool lights and my builder just used the 120 volt for some reason when I had six other 12 volt lights going into the pool. Another head scratcher. I guess if and when the main pool LED lights fail I'll change them over to 12 volt versions and get rid of this extra circuit.....

Could have been a wattage issue. Perhaps with all the other stuff on the transformer, the builder didn't want to exceed the power limit. I think 300W transformers are pretty typical but they may have installed less wattage and then used 120V lights for the main pool light. Honestly, I have standard 120V halogen lamps in my pool and would rather not have any lighting than switch over to pool LED lights. They are ridiculously expensive for the larger pool lights and their actual lifespans seems ridiculously low. We have plenty of posts on TFP where people are having to replace failed LED lights every 2 years or so ... at nearly $1,000 a clip. That's just insane in my opinion.

 

[JamesW]

You can probably power all light from the same breaker as long as you are not exceeding 80% of the breaker rating.

 

[JamesW]

A 20 amp breaker can take up to 16 amps.

At 120 volts, that is 1,920 watts.

So, you can put all lights on the single breaker.

The transformer uses 3 amps.

Pentair 601301 IntelliBrite 5G White Underwater LED Pool Light, 120 Volt, 50 Foot Cord, 500 Watt Equivalent

Each light uses 55 watts, which is 0.46 amps.

IntelliBrite® 5G White LED Pool Lights

IntelliBrite 5G White LED pool lights provide the most energy-efficient lighting ever. They use 89% less electricity than incandescent and halogen pool lights.

www.pentair.com

 

[Davegnh]

Thanks

The version of the LED pool lights I have used 28 watts each and my other lights I have six and they use 15 watts each. So the load is only around 150 watts for my 300 watt supply. Talking with my wife she remembers all the lights being wired to the low voltage circuit and an electrician have to come back and fix it. So my guess is somebody messed up and ordered 120 volt lights and not 12 volt.

I'd be fine with standard white lights myself but the boss wanted fancy color changing LED lights so that's what we got. And we needed eight lights for a 450 ft² pool...... But they do look really cool at night.

Dave

 

[Davegnh]

As I understand it I can combine both of my lighring circuits to be a single 20 amp GFCI breaker and free up spot in my panel?

Siemens QF120A Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter, 20 Amp, 1 Pole, 120 Volt, 10,000 AIC, Black Amazon.com

 

[JamesW]

As I understand it I can combine both of my lighting circuits to be a single 20 amp GFCI breaker and free up spot in my panel?

Correct.

You can power the 120 volt lights and the transformer from one of the existing 120 volt GFCI breakers.

 

[Mdragger88]

Fwiw we get plenty of rain here & some snow/ice & my panel is outdoors.
Many here are. It is rain tight so not a problem. Mine is on the back of my house out of sight but I see them all the time outside of the fence near the front of the house on new construction. Terrible idea in my opinion. Almost nobody has a lock

 

[JamesW]

Pentair 601301 IntelliBrite 5G White Underwater LED Pool Light, 120 Volt, 50 Foot Cord, 500 Watt Equivalent

Each light uses 55 watts, which is 0.46 amps.

Could have been a wattage issue. Perhaps with all the other stuff on the transformer, the builder didn't want to exceed the power limit. I think 300W transformers are pretty typical but they may have installed less wattage and then used 120V lights for the main pool light.

The version of the LED pool lights I have used 28 watts each and my other lights I have six and they use 15 watts each.

Pentair says 55 watts each.

In any case, mixing voltages does not make much sense.

Either voltage works, so you can mix if you want.

There are bigger transformers and you can use as many transformers as necessary, so power should not be a factor.

https://www.intermatic.com/Catalog/us/Products/Pool-And-Spa/Transformers/PX600

 

[JamesW]

600 W Pool & Spa Safety Transformer, Beige Steel Enclosure, Input 120V, Output 12,13,14V

Model#PX600

https://dtrermj9469s.cloudfront.net/userfiles/images/inriver/original/146814_intermaticvendor1_px600_technical_data_en.pdf

https://dtrermj9469s.cloudfront.net/userfiles/images/inriver/original/93795_px%20series%20sell%20sheet.pdf

https://dtrermj9469s.cloudfront.net/userfiles/images/inriver/original/9093_px600%20instructions%20en.pdf

 

[Davegnh]

Pentair says 55 watts each.

In any case, mixing voltages does not make much sense.

Either voltage works, so you can mix if you want.

There are bigger transformers and you can use as many transformers as necessary, so power should not be a factor.

https://www.intermatic.com/Catalog/us/Products/Pool-And-Spa/Transformers/PX600

My pool light

 

[JamesW]

Pentair 601301 IntelliBrite 5G White Underwater LED Pool Light, 120 Volt, 50 Foot Cord, 500 Watt Equivalent

Ok, you were the one who posted that the model number was 601301.