Lighting, Light Fixtures, Ceiling and Exhaust Fans - Installing Indoor Halogen Low Voltage Lightning

Hi,

I'm thinking about installing low voltage halogen recessed lights (MR-16 bulbs) in my family room. I vision the lights being recessed/flush with the ceiling and enough bulbs to provide decent natural lightning. I think 4 bulbs total would do the trick. It would be nice if they could be dimmable too.

After doing some research, i'm a bit confused by all of the choices available to me and I have a few questions.

When wiring the low voltage lines, can I use one transformer to step down the power for all 4 lights, or should each light have a seperate transformer?

What type of housing should I use that is able to be insulated form the attic? (or is there some sort of flush mount solution?)

How would I wire a dimmer switch for the low voltage line?

Any help, suggestions, and links to products is greatly appreciated.

Chris

I'm not sure how big your family room is or the amount of ambient lighting available. I have a couple of these and use them as a wall wash type of light, over the fireplace for example. They are fairly bright but I don't know about using just them to light the room.

Regardless, the fixtures I have, Halo, have built in transformers, so they run on line voltage. They can be dimmed with a regular dimmer.

They do get fairly hot, being halogen, so you need to make sure the fixture is IC rated.

Hope that helps.

I seriously doubt that you would be able to adequately light a room with MR16s. These are more for accent lighting. Given the small size and the beam spread your ceiling would need to look like a sponge with all the holes for the lights.