today we're looking at this Elemento range of outdoor switches and sockets from Hamilton
outdoor sockets from Hamilton yeah we don't normally assume Hamilton make outdoor switches
and sockets we are sort of used to when we think of Hamilton think they're high-end
decorative accessories and we've looked at a lot of them on the channel before
but we were recently down with a project in wales and we spotted an electrician fitting
this range of Elemento switches and sockets yeah when i nipped out to him the thing that grabbed
me straight away was the enclosure and the socket outlet were separate so when i was investigating
it it's actually you can buy just the enclosure on its own and fit almost whatever you like
within that enclosure they do come standard and i've got some standard arrangements in front of
me so take a look at those closer look so you can see you can buy them as you'd expect as a
as a socket we've got unswitched and switched versions here you've got a few spur
but when you actually buy them yeah you've got the socket as a loose item you fit the back box
and then let's have a little closer look at the back box so we've got our mounting holes here
so different manufacturers have different ways of doing this some have the the fixing screw hidden
uh in the in the same pillar that has the gasket in that's slightly different in this one you fix
through the back and then you fit this ceiling cap when you're finished yeah so just you just get the
fixing cap there you've got a fixed switch yeah and that gives you your IP66 rating so we've got
the gasket on the outside there and then we've got the front that we fit obviously got a nice gasket
round there and these sort of gel seals that seal around any cables that you bring in that
we're used to seeing on these um but yeah you're right so you can either buy them like this with
the uh your chosen wiring accessory in or you can just buy the empty enclosure and they've got you
thinking it'll be very exciting i started off by trying to fit one of their high-end socket outlets
in that don't quite fit but the thinking behind it was maybe you want some USB outlets outside
we know we're spending more and more time at home working from home and enjoying our garden and that
made me think about that metal clad when we'd already reviewed on the channel it's just down
there let's see what that one looks like inside it looks good so yeah so this yeah we're gonna put
this uh yeah a metal clad yeah you've got a metal clad USB outlet grey's on trend as well grey on
grey there and we've got the ability then to use the USB's because we can just buy the enclosure
yeah and that is that is probably one of the best benefits of this range i think you can
do that yeah who knows what you you might want to put out there yeah say the USB's
probably even grid switches in there oh right okay we'll get grizzly and again you imagine you've got
a fuse connection unit out there feeding a pond you have some smaller people join you
in your life and all of a sudden the pond's not acceptable you get rid of the pond you can just
change that take the fuse connection unit out and install a single socket yeah that also means
obviously if you've damaged uh damaged the socket outlet so if people either sometimes leave the
cover open hello it's an IP66 socket they don't latch it fully closed and obviously over time
sockets get down yeah you just have to change the the actual wiring accessory yeah uh you
don't have to change the whole enclosure which is if it's got armored cables in oh yeah yeah
an effort now when thinking about that enclosure okay and obviously holding the cover open or shut
you can actually lock it which is also really good shall we look at the locking feature
yeah so that's take this one you've built up so i'll notice there is screw caps in there obviously
people have a thing on screw caps but here's the one that's fully assembled with the screw caps
yeah if you want to lock this shot yeah so if it's on the side of your house or the front of
your house and obviously you've gone away you've got the ability to lock it so nobody could come
along and start plugging stuff in but it got me thinking about when my son was a little
bit younger and we'd be off to those parties but without a bouncy castle you know and it's plugged
in uh occasionally my son would drift around to the back of the bouncy castle and operate the
switch because it would go down well you could actually lock it on and close can you have with
this range yeah that's a bit of development there yeah okay where you got that from yeah i wonder
yeah and you're right and again you probably want to do that on a fuse spur as well so it's the same
on the single gang enclosures if this was feeding say the vending machine you might just want to put
the lock in there or it's again just nicely that's quite a good feature yeah just being able to lock
it on or off yeah that is good and then while we're in there we did touch on armored cables
the cable entries in the product obviously lots of them there is outside the double on the bottom
there and there's three on the uh on the dual gang box but they just pop out from the inside out
so you would struggle to get them you can't get them out this side so you're pushing that's over
the back so they're pretty and then there's the option to drill out an entry in the back which
obviously a lot of people be doing if they're coming uh cable coming out the wall into the back
of the unit and then we go on and look at switches so we've got those uh switches and then you end up
having a little neon on there and you've come up with an ingenious way of using that switch so it's
dark outside you've got to look for the switch it's got a neon on it but you can get the neon
to come on when the light is off is that right yeah on the neon indicator it's not my genius
obviously we've been the u lots of manufacturers used to do this on used to be able to buy indoor
light switches with a neon indicator option but it seems to people seem forgotten about
it uh and then i thought well that was fine with incandescent lamps i've done an L S Lousy look at
this then he's on with his LS Lousy here's our neon indicator okay so you've got it connected
to this sort of vapor-proof batten here okay so so i'll be able to see that potentially if it was
outside and it was dark this was garden lighting or something like that or maybe in that time yeah
you're in a warehouse or something where's the light switch so the neon indicator is on
and then the light comes on the indicator goes off oh right okay so it is pre-wired
for that in this outdoor range so we've got single and dual you can also get retractive switches as
well just to look at the circuit behind that for the people if you want the myth and magic behind
it it's obviously got our line conductor in there we've got the neon indicator wide
across the terminals of the switches and then obviously that's then in series with our lamp
so when the switch is off obviously the neutral makes its way through the filament of the lamp
and then down to the switch and then when you put the switch on you're just shorting out the
neon indicator so no longer glows when you say filament we're now probably talking neon are we
yes LED lighting yeah we've got all LED you can't get filaments anymore but it does work with
as you've seen here this is a vapor-proof batten that's probably a nice application for this um
on the switch as well we're just looking at the switches Gary they do tie them up and obviously
they've got always a divisive option you can put the little caps on as well when you're finished
so i think there's a little groove isn't there to help you get them out isn't that there is yes
so obviously you can follow our little Blu Tack trick as well um but yeah you can obviously people
always oh how do you get them out again but again good to stop but tampering and things like that so
i'm messing around with that you'll get it it's getting them out there they tend to be the issue
but they've got that little groove there and obviously get a tiny little screwdriver and just
pop them out and we've done that yeah so these are very tactile a good feel to those switches and
one more thing one more thing one more thing uh there's also a junction box which i think is yeah
a great addition to the range because you'll know my thoughts on the whenever i choose an enclosure
you always choose one too small yeah one too small so i thought let's have a look at this we'll
recently be doing some other videos on outdoor LED strip so watch out for them coming up i managed to
put the enclosure here i haven't put the screw caps on yet so in there i've managed to fit
a small LED driver and an EnOcean switch yeah and uh managed to fit the wiring in there still some
some gland room it's cozy yup it is but sometimes you know and i like this front the flat front
plate there i could see people possibly putting uh mini photo cells in there or things like that
so just gives you a few options when it comes to outdoor lighting control obviously people will
have seen the video we made on the Hamilton Air outdoor lighting control system which is obviously
a remote control system but if that doesn't uh if that doesn't suit the application you're in i
think this this enclosure could be good for a lot of things in the in in garden light particularly
and obviously very easy to install because it's got the same same pop-outs yeah so very quick
which we really did like i mean the amount of times you've gone in then you start drilling
can be a little bit of an issue when you're trying to drill the holes out on the solid surfaces
yeah i think good range yeah we've tried we've played around we we even got our red didn't we
fire um fuse connection unit we fitted that in and all sorts of things you have some fun fitting
different accessories in there to match the needs that you want but i think the ones it comes with
the standard are almost you go to anywhere they are and i've just realized that see the back box
on the junction box is exactly the same as the socket yeah it's the same with the socket so
that is a look at that there so good good idea that's a good yeah so we think this is uh yeah
a great range of outdoor switching sockets or IP66 uh pretty robust but what do you think
yeah just leave those comments below we'll leave some links to some of the other videos as well in
the description if you want to check those out and we'll try and get back to as many as we can