LEDWiz 5V power splitting......

[unclet]

I am powering the LEDWiz from a spare power supply.  I plan on using 10 ports which will have 5 sets of LED lights (connected in parallel) attached to each port.  There is one screw terminal on the LEDWiz in which the 5V power line is to be connected.   This 5V power will come from one RED wire from my power supply box and then be distributed to all the LED lights as required.

Now, obviously all the 5V wires required to go to each LED light can not fit in to the one 5V screw terminal on the LEDWiz so I am going to need to split this power into multiple different wires so I can send it to each LED light.    I would also like to use some screw terminals and some serial cable adapters along the way to make dismantling a bit easier.  As a result, I am going to be required to split the 5V power wire many times for it to reach each LED light.   

Is there a limit on how many times a 5V wire can be split up?

I attached a diagram showing how I would like to wire 4 sets of LED lights (4 lights to each set) to be powered by the LEDWiz.    Please confirm whether spliting the 5V power this many times will work without causing problems (ie: fire, etc..)

PS:  I might need to split the power a few more times depending on other sets of lights positioned elsewhere in my cabinet as well.

[Dudeman]

As long as you don't exceed the maximum current of the LEDWiz, you should have any problems.

[unclet]

I am also going to use the thin type wire found inside of a serial cable (or printer cable) to wire all of this up ......... is this alright?

[Dudeman]

My only worry would be the current capabilities of that size wire. I'd check the size and figure out how much current you will be pulling. This site www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm will give the capacities of various wire guages.

[lanman31337]

Maybe find a small distribution block?  That's what I did with all my grounds for my controls.

[unclet]

Dudeman:
Actually, the wire I am really using is as thin as the wire found in a serial cable/prniter cable, but it comes from a big spool of wire my work was not using anymore and they gave it to me.   When I strip the insulation off the end of this thin wire, then actual wire is copper in color.  I was just referencing the serial cable/printer cable thin wire size since I thought most people would be more familiar with this type of wire.  Thing is, I have no idea what the type of wire I am using was previously used for and I do not know the gauge type either.   If the wire I am using is made out of copper ...... then is this better?

The wires from the LEDs are very thin, so it seemed fine that I should be using the thin wire to attach them.   I guess this is bad thinking?   

Do most people use thick 20/22 gauge wire to connect LED lights?   It just seemed that the 20/22 gauge stuff was to thick compared to the wires from the LED lights.

Last night, I attached the resistors to about 40 LED lights and I also attached extension wires from the two LED light wires using my thin copper wire.  I would hate to have to undo all of that work to use thicker wire.    What do you recommend?


lanman:
What is a distribution block?   Is that the same thing as a "screw terminal block"?   Please explain what you did and why....

Are you saying I should use screw terminal blocks so I can use thicker wire from the LEDWiz all the way until I reach the screw terminal blocks and then I will be able to use thin wire to go from this terminal block to each individual LED light? 

Check out the picture I posted in my first post above.  It shows how I intend to use the screw terminal blocks in the wiring of my LED lights.   If I use "thin wire" from my LED lights to the screw terminal block only and then all the rest of the wire used is 20/22 gauge, then would this be safer and work better? 

The updated the picture to show THICK lines for the 20/22 gauge wire and thin lines to represent the "thin wire".

[kegger]

Uncle T, I noticed your diagram and I am a little confused, I don't know why you are tapping into the 5v going to your led's before going to the ledwiz. I would think you would want 5 volt to ledwiz then output's from ledwiz to your led's then otherside of led's
all going back to ground. I might be missing something though? The way the diagram shows, nothing goes to back to ground. Just curious....

[kegger]

Uncle T ignore my post I see where you got that diagram from it's just not the way I'm used to see something like that wired. I guess the outputs on the Led Wiz are the grounds.

[lanman31337]

hello there!  This is what I did for my machine.  Each joystick, and each set of buttons goes to the distribution block.  Then the block gets connected to my ipac-4.  That way I don't have 9 or 10 different sets of wires going into the ground wire of the device.



You can see the distro block beside the ipac-4

You'll 1) be able to use thicker wire if you so choose and 2) it'll be MUCH easier to troubleshoot if you have any problems. 

Try some CAT5 - it's inexpensive, 8 colors, and light gauge.

[Green Giant]

The basic concern with too much current for those thin wires is only for your 5V power.  The 5V line you are daisy chaining to every led should be a higher gauge than the ribbon cable.  The wire coming from each led to the ledwiz can be small.  The current running to each led will be really high but to the ledwiz should be small as it is divided up amongst every led you will use.

Basically, an led will only draw about .03 amps and 3 or 4 volts through it.  The skinny cable you are talking about will probably allow a max of 1 amp.  The number of led's you are talking about could fry the wire.  Just pick up a spool of 18 or 20 gauge wire.  Daisy chain it as much as you need from the 5V source, you shouldn't have any trouble splitting it up.  Then you can use the thin wire from the individual led's as each one draw such little power.

Thicker wire will not cause any kinds of problems, just allow more power to flow through it.  Just make sure you aren't running the power for every single led through the thin wire you have.  The red wire in your diagram needs to be a thicker gauge.

[unclet]

Uncle T, I noticed your diagram and I am a little confused, I don't know why you are tapping into the 5v going to your led's before going to the ledwiz. I would think you would want 5 volt to ledwiz then output's from ledwiz to your led's then otherside of led's
all going back to ground. I might be missing something though? The way the diagram shows, nothing goes to back to ground. Just curious....

I updated the diagram to show where the 5V power goes using RED arrows.

Here is a quick picture from GGG which explains how to wire the LEDWiz.  I am "not" using RGB LED lights but rather a normal single LED.


Green Giant
Based on my updated picture (first post), the thicker lines indicate thicker gauge wire and the thin lines indicate thin wire.   Please confirm my wiring one final time to make sure I am not going to fry anything....

Also, please note,  for each group of 4 LEDs shown in the picture the four blue wires coming from each LED grouping will be combined into one wire and then connected to one port on the LEDWiz.     This is because all four LED lights (in each group) are going to act as one LED light to the LEDWiz.   Also, I might need to have 5 LED lights per group in the future.    Anyway, knowing this information now, will you please verify my blue wires can still be "thin" wire going "from" the LED lights "to" the LEDWiz.

[Green Giant]

Green Giant
Based on my updated picture (first post), the thicker lines indicate thicker gauge wire and the thin lines indicate thin wire.   Please confirm my wiring one final time to make sure I am not going to fry anything....

Also, please note,  for each group of 4 LEDs shown in the picture the four blue wires coming from each LED grouping will be combined into one wire and then connected to one port on the LEDWiz.     This is because all four LED lights (in each group) are going to act as one   LED light to the LEDWiz.   Also, I might need to have 5 LED lights per group in the future.    Anyway, knowing this information now, will you please verify my blue wires can still be "thin" wire going from the LED lights to the LEDWiz.

That looks just fine.  Running 4 or 5 leds through the thin wire shouldn't cause any problems.  Good luck and post pictures of the progress.

[unclet]

Thanks for all the help.   

I have been taking pictures along the way of building my jukebox cabinet and will share once the cabinet has been completed of course.

[Dudeman]

Looks good as long as you stick with the larger gauge.

Remember the water analogy when working with electricity.

Current is the amount of water flowing through the pipe. The more water, the bigger the pipe. If you try to push too much water through a small pipe, it will burst. Same with the wires. A tiny wire will handle the 5 volts fine, but 1 or 2 amps might be too much.

[unclet]

Thing is I have no idea what the difference is between a Volt and an Amp ....... but I do know not to stand in water when dealing with either ......   

[Dudeman]

Think about it like this. Volts don't kill, amps do. (THAT IS VERY OVER SIMPLIFIED)

A lightning bolt can be thousands of volts but very little amperage. That's why people can be struck and not die.

With the water idea:
Volts is the pressure of the water, amps is the flow of the water.

[Green Giant]

The two of them are directly related to power, wattage.

Power=Volt x Current   --->  watts=volts x amps

The smaller the wire, the less power it can handle.  The thin wire you have can handle quite alot of voltage at really low current.  Since the led's require 3-4 volts and about .04 amps to light, they utilize .12-.16 watts.  The thin wires can maybe handle 1 or 2 watts.  So the five you are running to the ledwiz will pull .5-.6 watts, perfectly safe.

If you were to try and draw more than that the wire would heat up and start to melt the protective shielding around it and then possibly catch on fire until the connection was broken.

[unclet]

Well I just wired up two sets of 4 LED lights using 20AWG wire for all power (5V) connections and the thin wire for the LED lights.   Works beautifully ....

Thanks for your help!

[Dudeman]

Excellent! Can't wait to see the final product.

[lanman31337]

Here's how I explain it to people.  Imagine you have a piece of pipe with water flowing through it.  Voltage is the pressure of the water, Amperage is the amount of water flowing thru the pipe.  Let's say you double the pressure of water, or voltage.  You would in fact cut in half the amount of amperage for the same amount of water flowing thru the pipe.  Or if you'd drop the voltage in half, you'd have to have double the size of pipe to get the amount of water flowing thru it to be the same.  If you look on units that can run on 120/240, you'll see something like 120 volts, 10 amp or 240 volts, 5 amp.  With LED lights, yours are 5 volt, but they draw milliamp.  You only need a very small wire to get them powered up, unless you're running across long distances, then you'd need a bigger gauge wire because of voltage drop and amperage increases.