Are you talking about switching the 230V input to the 'transformers'? If so, no, you must not do as you suggest. Apart from anything else, it would mean that one of the live conductors in the cable would not have the required 'insulation and sleeving' (which some, theoretically incorrectly, call 'double insulation') - you could, as you say, put red sleeving over the exposed ends, but that would leave the entire length of the conductor within the cable 'bare'.
If you're talking about the 230V wiring then, yes, I'm afraid so.
I'm getting confused. Since you used the plural word "transformers", I thought you were talking about reverting to using two 'transformers' (one permanently connected to each light) and switching the 230V inputs to those two 'transformers'.
Indeed. Unless it has built in safeguards to prevent this problem (i.e. reducing output voltage to near zero if the load impedance is greater than some certain value - including 'no load at all), then connecting a load to an already-powered-up constant-current source carries risk of destroying the load which you describe, and for the reasons you describe.
Sorry, I still don't really understand.
Indeed - that was the point I made.
This is the bit that I don't fully understand. If they had their own transformers, the 2-gang switch would be switching the 230V supply to each of the transformers, each of which would, in turn, be connected, unswitched (each requiring just a 2-core cable) to the respective light.
Maybe, but I still don't really understand what you are saying - as I said before, a diagram would be invaluable.
There are three ways to use extra low voltage (12 volt) separated, protective, and functional. With latter FELV you can decide if to use an earth or not, but with protective (PELV) you have to use an earth and with separated (SELV) you not permitted to use an earth. With most ELV systems they are SELV so you can't use an earth. Since any unused wire in a low voltage system should be earthed it does present a problem where LV and ELV are mixed, in the main we don't use twin and earth for ELV.
Thanks for that! I thought my led strip light was flickering but wasn't certain. This gives a possible reason for that.A 12 volt strip light one would expect to be DC however it does not need to be supplied with ripple free DC it can be fed with a rectified supply directly from the transformer used to drop the voltage so the wave form could look like thisor it could look a lot worse with a full off period in the mark/space controlled output. The LED is a current device and it can handle a set amount of power before overheating, but as long as the RMS voltage is kept to 12 volt having 16 volt spikes does not really matter.
This means a cheap LED power supply be it either AC, or DC voltage regulated or current regulated can still cause RF interference. I note some do state interference free, which would hardly need stating if others were not interference free.
The problem is to find which are OK and which are not you need to read the data sheet, it is often not mentioned on the sales advert, so many once you read the data sheet limit the cable length to 2 or 3 meters which also includes the length of the strip. It really does not matter what label is on the device, transformer, driver, power supply, or electronic transformer until one reads the data sheet one can't really say, OK with some you can see it is a simple wire wound transformer so you know not really a RF problem, but even if you can see capacitors inside it does not mean it is a smooth output.
So some thing looking like thisis likely OK designed to work from zero output and with a smooth output, but with these bricks
when it says for LED lighting you really don't have a clue without a lot of reading which can have long output leads and which can't. In the main the strip LED lighting is only for decoration, often with a lumen per watt output little better than a tungsten lamp, 20 lumen per watt is common.
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