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hello and thank you for taking the time toview this presentation on changes to the national electric code for low voltage swimming poollighting. this presentation was designed specifically for electrical inspectors. but will also bebeneficial to electrical contractors involved in the swimming pool industry. and it willprovide you with one source for many of the changes that have occurred since the 1999code cycle. lets take a look at what will be covered in this presentation. first ofall we will discuss why nec changed the code. then we will look specifically at article680 as it relates to grounding of the lights, gfci protection, the depths of the lightsand bonding of the light niches, which is the most recent change. then we will introduceyou to the new universal colorlogic led light

from hayward pool products, which is ul listedand meets all of the changes in the code. we will also talk about retrofits and whythis new led light is ul listed to be installed into most existing pool niches. and of coursewe will provide you with the source for additional information included a dedicated phone numberto call.it was actually the swimming pool industry that started this change in motion.back in the early 2000's they got together with ul to discuss a safer, low voltage lightingsystem. ul agreed that the system that the pool industry suggested was in fact saferand could be installed with less opportunity for installer error. then it was ul that wentto the nec board and petitioned them to make a change to the code that would allow allplastic low voltage pool lighting systems

to be installed without bonding or groundingof the niches or lights. before we look at the specific changes to the code, lets lookat why swimming pool industries was interested in making 12 volt lighting more popular andeasier to install. although there are many jurisdictions in the united states that require12 volt lighting, the great majority of the united states still uses line voltage lightingeven though 12 volt lighting is safer. note it's not that line voltage lighting isn'tsafe, it's just the 12 voltage lighting is safer. however there have been several goodreasons that contractors typically have avoided low voltage lighting. and they are listedon this slide. as you look down at this slide at these reasons, you will see that it hasprimarily to do with the cost of the 12 volt

lighting system as well as the labor involvedwith installing or replacing them. but fortunately due to technological advances in plastic manufacturingand led lighting, we could now bring 12 volt lighting products to the marketplace thataddress all the problems listed here. now lets look at how the code has changed. althoughsome changes occurred in the 2002 code cycle, a definition for low voltage was not actuallyincluded in the code until 2008 and it continues today in the 2011 edition. you see the itemlisted in red, number 1, 15 volts sinusoidal ac. that is the definition that is applicableto swimming pool lights. the other three definitions listed were added in 2011 and are for applicationsoutside of the swimming pool industry. the first change to the nec occurred in 2002 andis shown here, addressed being able to manufacture

and install 12 volt light fixtures withoutgrounding conductors. these are all plastic light fixtures and there are many in the industrytoday both in halogen quartz lighting and in led lighting, which you may have seen.this slide is included as a reminder that all transformers in the swimming pool industryshould be listed for swimming pool use. that is you should not go to your local hardwarestore and pick up a 12 volt transformer and connect it to a swimming pool light. thisis primarily because listed swimming pool transformers have separate chambers for thehigh voltage and low voltage wiring. now lets look at gfci protection. although gfcic protectionis required for high voltage swimming pool lighting systems, there are two sections ofthe code listed here the allow for low voltage

lighting systems to be installed without gfciprotection. therefore, gfci protection is not required on any listed low voltage lightingproduct in the pool industry. certainly in your jurisdiction you may require it but itis not required by the national electric code. now lets look at the depths of swimming poollights. for decades the national electric code had required that all swimming pool lightsbe located a minimum of 18 inches below water level to the top of the lens. this verbiagewas included originally to keep the light away from the chest cavity. they didn't wantsomebody that might be standing or hanging on the deck in front of the light while talkingto somebody on the deck to have the light located right at the chest in the event thatthe glass lens had a crack in it or that there

might be some other current leakage that couldaffect the heart, especially if the person had a pacemaker. so this was the reason forthe 18-inch depth requirement. well now with the advent of plastic swimming pool lightfixtures and unbreakable plastic lenses, lights can be listed to be installed up to 4 inchesbelow water level because we do not have the opportunity for lens breakage or for currentleakage into the pool that might be damaging to the heart. this minimum dimension of 4inches primarily exist to provide adequate cooling of the light. and to prevent strobingof the light beam when there is wave action in the pool. the next thing that is addressedas seen at the bottom of this slide is locating lights on the bottom of a pool, spa or fountainto illuminate a waterfall or other water feature.

in the past, any time we wanted to do thatwe had to have a cover; some sort of a grate on top of that light to protect somebody fromputting their foot through the glass lens or a rock from possibly cracking the lens.again with plastic lights, they can be listed as a number 2 to be used without a guard ifthey have passed the ul impact test. now lets look at bonding of the forming shell or aniche for a swimming pool light. because niches all have had some metal in them, they havebeen required to be bonded to the aqua potential bonding grid of the swimming pool. with eitherbonded metal conduit or a number 8 copper wire attached to a bond log on the outsideof the niche. and if pvc conduit has been used to connect the niche to the power sourcean additional number 8 bond jumper has been

required to go down the conduit with the lightcord and connect to a redundant bond lug inside the niche as shown in this picture. now forthe biggest change in the national electric code, you could see on this slide that anylow voltage lighting system that is listed to be installed without grounding is now alsoexempt from the bonding requirement. so like niches that are part of a low voltage lightingsystem that is all plastic and so listed, can be installed without bonding. and youwill find that there will be no bonding lugs on the niches. now lets look at hayward poolproducts new lighting system that satisfies all of these nec changes and is the firstof its kind in the market place. first of all, and for the first time, hayward poolproducts now has a 300 watt transformer. similar

but slightly different than the existing 300watt transformers in the marketplace. and we will go into more detail on that later.then unique to the marketplace there is a 70 and 140 watt retrofit transformer and a70-watt transformer for new installations. the plastic forming shell for gahnite concretepools only at this point in time is only 2 3/4 inches thick and has no bonding lugs asit does not require bonding. this niche will actually disappear in the wall of a pool andthere will be no need to build a re-bark cage around it to shoot concrete around it. thenwe have the non-conductive sealed polymer luminaire with no serviceable parts. thisis the led light fixture that only draws 65 watts and is totally sealed. this is becausethere is no need at any time to get into the

light itself as the led bulbs are going tolast 20,000-30,000 hours or possibly more. when and if the light burns out, the entirefixture would be replaced. lastly, we have the nonconductive polymer trim ring in variouscolors to finish the surface look of the light. one of the available trim rings looks verymuch like stainless steal because pool owners have gotten use to this look and their pool.so if you go out to a final inspection on a pool with one of these ucl light systemsinstalled and wonder why it has a stain less steel trim ring, i encourage you to do whatevertest you like to prove that it is indeed plastic and offers no electrical conductivity. lookingfurther at the light niche, as you see on this slide, it comes with a compression fittingfor a cord lock and water seal. this will

prevent water from running back into the conduit.those of you who have ever seen or had to use underwater epoxy to prevent water fromleaking back into the conduit will truly appreciate this feature. as shown here, it comes witha 45 degree 1 inch elbow, there is also a reducer bushing from 1 inch to 3/4 inch ifthat is the conduit size being used. as you can see from this slide, there is ample roominside the niche for cord storage. now cord storage is required by pool standards in orderto be able to put the light fixture up on the deck without disconnecting it. in theevent that it or the pool needs to be serviced. again because this is a non-serviceable fixture,a contractor will not have to work on it. but if they were to refinish the inside ofthe pool, they would want to be able to put

it up on the deck. there is room for up to12 feet of cord storage so if this light is installed at the bottom of a pool, spa orfountain there is adequate storage space to be able to put fixture up on the deck fromthose depths. another unique feature of the ucl light system, you do not need a screwto capture the light fixture into the niche. rather it twists lock into the niche. thena tool is required along with knowledge of where to insert it to release the lockingmechanism to remove the fixture. this prevents children from removing it. then to finishthe installation, the trim ring twist lock into place on the face of the fixture. thereis also a spa ucl light system which looks very much like existing spa light assemblies.however, it is all-plastic in construction

and therefore can be ul listed for installationwithout bonding. now lets look at hayward's 300-watt transformer. it looks pretty muchlike any other 300-watt transformer in the market place with one exception. you see inthe slide where it says placeholder for coupler, and we will talk about what that coupler isshortly. the ucl led light fixture is a 65-watt appliance. so if you did the math and divided65 into 300, you would say that 4 ucl lights could be operated by 1, 300 watt transformer.however, from an operational viewpoint, the number of led fixtures is limited to 3. nowthe coupler is an interface between the hayward pro logic pool automation system and the ucllights. this allows a customer who has opted for the automation system to have more controlover their lights than they would just by

using a switch on the wall. the coupler translatesa signal that is sent from the prologic pool automation system in the house and tells thelight what color to be on or what program to run. and in the case of the 300-watt transformer,a single coupler can identify three individual lights and tell them to be three individualcolors, or designate each ones moving color in a light show program. it is worth notinghere that the ucl light is able to produce 101 different colors and 11 predesigned lightshows. the basic switched ucl light model only allows access to 10 of the colors and7 of the programs through an interrupt switch circuit. in order to access the remainingcolors and shows, or even design new shows, the prologic pool automation system is required.this slide shows the wiring of the 300 watt

transformer. like all listed swimming pooltransformers, it has 2 chambers, one on the high voltage side and one on the low voltageside and it has 3 low voltage outputs; 12, 13 and 14 volts. however, you will noticeon the slide that it says to not use the 12 and 13 volt legs. instead the 14 volt outputshould be used to get as much voltage to the fixture as possible. then the light controlsthe voltage internally, boosting it as necessary to its operational voltage. so all lightsin a pool will provide their designed lumen output as long as there is a minimum of 9.6volts available at the light. therefore, we do not need to worry about having too muchvoltage at the light. so all lights should be connected to the 14-volt leg. now as faras the coupler is concerned, if it is used,

it has 4 additional wires; 2 on the high voltageside and 2 on the low voltage side. and of course it is imperative that the wires beconnected to the proper side. finally you will notice the bond wire that is connectedto the bottom of the transformer. just a reminder, that you do not have to connect a bond wirehere if the transformer is located more than 5 feet from the waters edge. lets move nowto the subject of retrofits. in the past, it has been against ul listing to installmanufacture abc's light fixture into manufacture xyz's niche. this is because ul has not hadthe opportunity to test these light fixtures and niches together. since part of their testprocedure involves a millivolt drop test across the screw that holds the 2 parts together.to see how well the niche bond is transferred

to the fixture, if they cannot test the 2parts together, they cannot be to be listed to be installed together. now, with the adventof the new led nonmetallic all plastic light fixtures, ul is listing these light fixturesto be installed into any niche that they will fit into. this is a game changer. there hasbeen a lot of confusion over the years about why you should not mix fixtures and niches.and some manufactures have marketed light fixtures tested by another agency to be installedin any niche. so to help you understand this better, if you go to the iaei website www.iaei.organd type the name steven holms into the search box, you will find an article that he wrotefor the iaei magazine in august of 2003 explaining the dangers of this practice. we suggest thatyou keep a copy of this article in your files

for future reference. is this practice reasonablysafe? probably. is it absolutely safe? no. is it a liability issue? absolutely. if therewas ever an accident in this pool, a good lawyer would study the pool from end to endand if they found that the contractor had mixed fixtures and niches, which is againstthe ul listing, they would use it against the contractor in a trial. now that the uclled light fixture is an exception to this ul listing restriction, we can tell you thatthe fixture can be safely installed into any of the niches you see listed on this page.and you will find a listing of the part numbers of the various niches included in the packagingwith the ucl fixtures. the ucl fixture will install into an existing niche just the sameas the current fixture in the niche. because

it comes with the screw to hold it in place,using one of two screw locations and one of two mounting clip locations to fit the variousniches in the marketplace. the screw is metal but it just becomes a part of the existingmetal niche and it is not required to transfer the bond from the niche to the light fixturesince the fixture is all plastic. one word of caution, the number 8 bond wire on theoutside of the niche and the number 8 bond jumper wire on the inside of the conduit andniche must remain in place if the conduit is non metallic. now, if you are thinkingthat as an inspector, you will not become involved with retrofit installations, thereis one possibility early on as contractors learn about this new light when you might.you could have a show on the ground now with

a bonded niche on which you have already completeda rough in inspection and when the contractor learns about these new lights, he decidesthat he wants to install them in this new pool. so you may go out for the final inspectionand find that there is a hayward ucl light fixture installed into another manufacturesniche. with this new information about the new ul listing, you now know that this isan acceptable installation. moving ahead with the subject of retrofits, there are 2 otheraftermarket possibilities. first there is already a 12-volt light fixture in the poolwhen the customer decides to upgrade to the hayward ucl light. in this case the new uclfixture can simply be connected to the existing transformer via a junction box if present.second, when there is a 120 line voltage light

in the pool, if they have a ul listed swimmingpool junction box for this light hayward has available new j-box conversion kits to providea 70 watt or dual 70 watt transformer to install inside the listed junction box. as noted previously,anytime that we complete a retrofit, we do have to leave the existing number 8 bond jumperin place. if this line voltage light is connected to a switch all the way back at the pool servicepanel, then a new j-box transformer or wall mount transformer will have to be installed.before we look further at the retrofit transformer kits, we thought it important to bring toyour attention the nec article that requires swimming pool junction boxes to be listedfor the application. we have found that many contractors and inspectors are not aware ofthis requirement. so the applicable parts

of the article are listed here for you. asyou see, article 680.24 states that the junction box shall be listed for the application shallbe installed 4 inches above ground level and 8 inches above water level. and finally, justto make you aware, the code does allow for low voltage lights to be connected througha flush deck box, which is no longer true for line voltage lights. this is one exampleof what a listed swimming pool junction box looks like. a brass bass with 3 or and insome 4 places to connect conduit. and then a polymer cover to go on top of the base.on the inside is a strain relief to capture the fixture cord and lugs for the bond andground wires. there are also round all plastic listed junction boxes in the market placewith brass bus bars on the inside to make

all of the necessary connections. now lookat this example, does this meet article 680.24? obviously not. or how about these junctionboxes? do they meet the code? again, obviously not. this is an example of how gfci protectionused to be provided for high voltage lights using a gfci receptacle inside the pvc junctionbox. however, nec requires that listed junction boxes be used for all swimming pool-like connections.therefore, you can no longer put a gfci receptacle inside a standard pvc box and consider itan acceptable installation. now, lets look at the j-box retrofit kit. on the right ofthis picture you see a standard brass based listed junction box. then on the left side,you see the transformer, a possible coupler, and a taller cover for the complete assembly.as mentioned earlier, hayward now provides

retrofit kits for all of the primary listedjunction boxes in the market place as shown on this slide. now lets look at the wiringof this j-box transformer for retrofits or new construction. as you can see, there areonly 14-volt leads coming from the secondary side of this class 4 transformer. so thatis where the light will be connected and then you have the high voltage connections comingin on the other side. as a reminder, if this is a retrofit, the number 8 bond jumper mustremain if there is nonmetallic conduit. see the note on the right side that reads, mayalso see coupler here? the prologic coupler snaps into place there, similar to the waya 9-volt battery snaps into place in a smoke detector. so, if the customer opts for theprologic pool automation system, you would

see one of these transformers and one couplerfor each light. unless upgrading a 4-hold junction box for 2 lights and installing adual transformer retrofit kit with 1 coupler for both lights. so in summary, since theuniversal colorlogic and universal crystallogic lighting systems, which is the white lightonly commercial model are completely plastic low voltage systems. there is no need, orrequirement to bond the hayward nonmetallic niches specific to these lights and for thefirst time, ul now allows these fixtures to be retrofitted into existing installationswith listed niches that have already been bonded per the national electrical code. thesenext 2 slides show the package insert that will provide you with the necessary documentationso that you know these lights meet the new

ul listing and national electric code changes.on this slide we show you the various ul listing that you will find on the ucl product line.first, fresh and seawater. note: some product may say fresh water only as old labels areused up. however, for swimming pools, ul's definition of fresh water includes salt poolwith low concentrations for salt chlorine generators. next, when properly secured maybe used with 3rd party niches. next use a 4-inch minimum depth to top off lens and finallyfor supply connection, use only a listed swimming pool spa-isolating transformer. if you arein an area that has not yet adopted the 2008 or 2011 national electric code, this slideis asking that you please consider allowing these niches and fixtures to be installedin your jurisdiction without grounding or

bonding as allowed by their ul listing andthe national electric code. this slide shows the various models that are available. theswitched residential model means that you control the light by a wall switch to turnit on and to choose one of the 10 predetermined colors or 7 predetermined color-changing programs.the networked model means that the lights would be controlled by the hayward prologicpool automation system using couplers inside the transformers to access all of the 101colors and 11 programs available or to design a personal color changing show. the low whitelight is the commercial equivalent to a 300-watt incandescent light and the high white is thecommercial equivalent to a 500-watt incandescent light. finally the spa lights available areapproximately equivalent to a 100-watt incandescent

light. for additional information, pleasesee the lights section on the hayward pool products website shown here. if you have questions,please call your dedicated toll free number listed here. thank-you for taking the timeto watch this presentation. we hope that you found it worthwhile.