Current Question

[CVLDGolf]

Ok so I have a string of 500 individually addressable LEDs that pull ~0.3W/LED (12V & up to 20mA). The total current draw for the 12V string should be roughly 12.5A if allowed to run at full power. The controller allows me to set a max current, right now I have it capped at 4A so the LED brightness is not what I would like to see (Power supply is capable of 30A). There are a few locations where I used a 22AWG breadboard jumper to span a short gap between connectors. Am I safe to increase the current? 22AWG aluminum wire current capacity certainly isnt that high? Im not an expert but over the length of the string the voltage will drop as well, does this not mean LED 500 could be receiving 6V which would make the local current higher? The LED string wires themselves are stranded aluminum that cant be much larger than the breadboard jumpers?

Thank you for any help in advance.

Corey

 

[LionelHutz]

The breadboard and 22awg wire won't handle 12.5A. It doesn't sound like the LED string will either but you can feed power to it in multiple locations with bigger wire to fix that.

 

[itsmoked]

You sure about that being aluminum wire? I've never heard of Al wire anywhere near that small.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[3DDave]

I think Big Clive has run across it in the world of chinesium products.

 

[Comcokid]

What is a "short gap between connectors"? Are you talking about 5 inches or 5 feet?

Be careful with some bread board wire. I saw a YT video where someone was bread boarding a circuit to fire-up an old Apollo DSKY display. Had problems and traced it down to a 2" piece of chinesium copper-plated aluminum jumper wire. This copper-appearing wire sold for bread boarding may have tiny voids of copper-plated aluminum oxide under the insulation. Two inch jumper that was open electrically.

 

[CVLDGolf]

The jumper wires are always <6" long. Outside of that you are dealing with the stranded aluminum wire that comes on the lights.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MCQP7KP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

[JG2828]

The link states that it ships in 10 packs of 50 lights. So, you should be able to use larger wires to run from the controller to each set of strands. Don't run all 10 strands end to end. Run them in parallel, not series.
I don't see any mention of them using aluminum wires. I'm guessing they are actually 20awg tinned copper.

 

[jimkirk]

I ran a length of a couple hundred LEDs like this. Used a pair of 10 AWG wires for power and ground and tapped the individual strings off that, with the data lines all in series for control. Worked fine.