# Forum Home Renovation Lighting  wire for garden lighting

## chunky59

Hi 
I have two planter boxes that i want to put garden lights in 
I have a conduit running between the two planter boxes and want to run a power cable through it so the lights in both planter boxes light up off the same circuit 
Do i run  normal white wire or the black garden lighting wire? 
I intend to run the wire into my garage and then connect to a transformer that i will plug into a  GPO 
Chunky59

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## Bruiser

Either - black will probably look best. 
Sounds like you're dealing with the low voltage side of some garden lights?  For only two lights it probably doesn't matter much, but the two things that can create problems are i) distance and ii) lots of load.  If it's a really long way (>30m or so) you may need to get some thicker cable, but seriously, try it and see.

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## chunky59

Thanks for that 
I have been told that the black garden lighting wire is thicker which is better for the low voltage lights that are often used in the garden settings 
If i used LEd lights would it still be better to use the black garden wire?

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## Moondog55

Thicker wire equals lower resistance, so less voltage drop, important on long runs with low voltage stuff.
it this is 2 wire stuff there is a trick. Often extension cords are much cheaper thhan any other type of copper cable. check to see if a run of 10 or 15Amp extension cord is cheaper than the same run of outdoor cable, ( I have never seen anything bigger than 2.5<2 figure 8) then you can cut the ends off the 3 core flex and wire the green and blue together ( use solder ) This is how I make high current speaker cables cheap

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## Bruiser

LED lights draw hardly any current (eg 1 Watt or 3 Watt versus 20 - 50 Watt for incandescent) so you can use any cable you like.

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