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LEDWiz 5V power splitting......
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.
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