Wiring Rope Lights into lighting circuit instead off mains??

Calibos

This is an Light question. More specifically a Rope Light question!

Here goes. Our Garage is converted and has been a cinema room with projector for many years now. Obviously for the most part the room is dark and thus when we started filling the room with Dvd Shelves for the ever growing collection, we had no problem removing the light fittings on the side wall (only lights in the room/no ceiling lights) to make room for the racks. ie took the fittings off, insulated the light cables coming out of the wall which are hidden behind the racks. No problemo didn't really miss the lights as the room needs to be dark most of the time as I said. We were quite happy to use a torch to browse the dvd collection when selecting a movie. This eventually became a pain though when the torch would go missing all the time.

Anyway last year I bought some christmas rope lights. I ran these around the DVD racks and another rope light around the shelves on the back wall that hold the movie monster figures etc. Have to say it looks great. Really looks good when showing off the room to visitors and the rope lights on the DVD rack give enough light to browse the DVD collection with ease. This is the only time these rope lights are on. ie when demoing or browsing the dvds. They are rarlely on for more than a few minutes at a time which is good because I know these things are no substitute for normal room lights that can be left on all day.

Now at the moment both sets of rope lights plug into a double adapter on a double switched wall socket. The projector is also plugged into the other socket of the double wall socket. Herein lies the problem. We switch the rope lights on and off with the appropriate switch on the wall socket. Problem is is that occasionally someone presses the wrong switch and shuts off the PJ at the mains by mistake. As anyone with a projector will know this is not good for a projectors bulb which are costly consumable items (€250+). ie PJ should be switched off with the PJ power button so that the PJ fans remain on for a few minutes to cool the bulb properly. It is also not advisable to turn a PJ back on straight away but to leave it off for 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour.So as you can imagine and accidently PJ switch off can be both damaging to the PJ and also a pain in the proverbial.

So....... I was wondering is it possible to wire these rope lights into the lighting circuit (instead of plugged into the mains) and switch on with the actual light switch which is still on the wall. This is a dimmer switch by the way. If this was feasible should I change the dimmer to a straight on/off switch. Maybe I could even change it to an IR light switch and use the Universal remote (Harmony 885) to switch the lights on and off! Again, assuming this is at all possible should I wire both sets of rope lights into one of the old light points (now behind the dvd rack as I said earlier) or wire one rope light into one old light point and the other rope light into the other light point. (there are two old light points, both with fittings removed and tied off/insulated and hidden behind dvd racks remember)

Is this at all possible??

Thanks in advance.

Steve

There should be no prob wiring into light circuit provided the rope lights aren't above 200 / 300W total load.
I'd recommend replacing the dimmer with a regular switch - and also if the rope lights are reachable (can be touched) then for safety, install an RCD at the point you are connecting them.