Current leaking from sealed electrical in water?

[Shawn_Laughlin]

I’m designing a light fixture for underwater lights and everything was going great until I checked for any current leakage. All I have is a multimeter but my meter is reading 90 vac when lights are powered.
The bulbs are being supplied with around 120 to 135v and the reading I get from the water is always less than what is being fed to the fixture.

Just for a test I put a section of a brand new heavy insulated extension cord into the same barrel that I test my lights in “not the plug end” and put a probe in the water and one probe to my a metal column on my building and got around 90v reading again.

Now I know for a fact water isnt getting through the seoow cord and all connections inside fixture are potted in epoxy and no water is getting passed the seal where the bulb screws In as it’s bone dry but somehow there is still volts being read in the water.

I’m leaning towards the readings being false. If I throw a wire In the water and then touch the wire to the building which is metal and grounded, none of the 3 gfci’s trip so would it be safe to say it is a phantom voltage?

Is it caused by inductance maybe?

I have 4 sets that I’m giving away so I can do real world testing to make sure they last before selling but this has halted that. I’m trying to make these as safe as possible.

Or what do I need to do to find out if these 90 volts are hazardous or safe?

 

[James]

I think you need to get an electrical engineer onboard your project before sending any samples out for real world testing.

there are many regulations regarding the safe use of electricity in and around water and they change from country to country and possibly even from state to state in the usa.

this is not something to be taken lightly and done on the cheep using advice from a forum.
you should have some documented design work and testing before any of these lights leave your hands.

 

[westward10]

As above different rules in different places but in the UK any luminaires in a swimming pool, assuming this is a swimming pool are restricted to 12vac or 30vdc.

 

[Shawn_Laughlin]

I’m in the us our rules are a bit different. But after failing to receive any useful answers I had a guy look over it and was impressed that someone self taught built a control box from only reading and past experience and he explained what was happening and said my design was one of those ones that’s so obvious couldn’t believe he didn’t think of it. I’m not an idiot just not an electrician but I do know some and I’m not doing this in my garage I’m just wanting to branch out from my cnc machine shop. Had an idea and went with it and it’s going to be a hit in the fishing community.