Landscape Lighting

My wife and I finally started giving our backyard more attention this year (OK fine, mostly my wife), and naturally I needed to find an excuse to throw some wires in the ground. Adding some simple landscape lighting was the perfect project.

Material List

Lights
I purchased a couple of 12V MR16 spot lights on Amazon for a very reasonable $11.99 each.

Paradise GL22724BK

Lamps (bulbs)
The lights come with 20W MR16 halogen lamps, however I wanted to use LED lamps instead in order to reduce the total wattage, as well as get a longer lamp life. I ended up purchasing these for about $7 shipped. They are most likely low end Chinese garbage, and will not last the 50,000 hours the high quality LED lamps are rated for, but for this application I wasn't looking to spend a lot on the lamps.

4W LED MR16

Note the increased depth when compared to a regular 20W MR16

Power Supply
Most landscape lights are low voltage (12V), so a power supply/transformer is needed. Since I was using low wattage LED lamps, I was able to save some money and purchase a low wattage power supply (30W). $17.99 on Amazon.

Intocircuit 30W 12V LED Power Supply

Wire
The best price I could find on the wiring itself was Menards for $26.49 for 100' of 16-2 (16 is the wire gauge, and 2 is the number of wires). 16 gauge wire is typically adequate for most normal circuit lengths and low wattage circuits.

16-2 Wire

Insteon Controlled Receptacle
Since I have an existing home automation system, I decided to control the landscape lights with an Insteon controlled receptacle. This is by no means the only way to turn landscape lighting on and off; many power supplies have a built-in timer, or a photocell could be used.

Insteon Receptacle

Installation Procedure

Determine the Light Locations
This may seem obvious, but it's a good idea to figure out exactly where the lights will go before thinking about the wiring. I put them about 2' from the trees I was planning on lighting.

Dog shown for scale

Determine the Wire Routing
It's helpful to predetermine the route the wiring will take, where the power supply will be mounted, and where the power supply will connect to line voltage (120V). We have a detached garage right next to the area where the lights were going, so that was a convenient location to mount the power supply and plug it in.

Install the Wiring and Lights
I forgot to take some pictures while burying the cable, but there's no mystery here; just dig a few inches down, push down the cable, throw the dirt back on top, and repeat. The lights come with a stake on the end, so they were very easy to push into the soil. I installed a "service loop" at each light, which is just a fancy way of saying I left excess cable in case I ever wanted to move the light in the future. The lights include splice connectors for making the final connections to the lights. The splice connectors are very easy to use, as they don't even require you to cut the wire to make the connection.

Typical landscape lighting splice connector

Install the Power Supply
Many landscape lighting installations have the power supply outdoors, since it is typically convenient to find a power receptacle mounted on the house or garage. I mounted the power supply inside our garage since it was so easy to route the wiring into the garage.

Power supply mounted to a stud in the garage

Install the Lighting Control Device
In my case, the lighting control device is the controlled receptacle. I wrote a program in the ISY-994i to turn this receptacle on at dusk, and off when we go to sleep.

Program to turn on landscape lights and front porch light at dusk

Program which performs multiple actions when I press a button on my phone

Updated MobiLinc interface with controlled receptacle for landscape lights

Final Product
For the cost and ease of the installation, I'm happy with the how it turned out. I'm not exactly being environmentally friendly by adding some upward light pollution for a few hours a night, but I'm over it. The photos make it look brighter than it actually is.