Appropriate wire for splices and xConnect runs?

I'm sure there's a million answers to what wires are "appropriate" for 12V lights. I was given a 250ft spool of Syston QSH-CBL-M wire which is a 16AWG pair with a 22AWG pair.

Question, this seems to me like a perfect fit for 12V light runs (thicker for power, 22AWG retains data better) whether I'm splicing to wire ends together or making longer runs with xConnect ends. Anyone see any reason why this stuff wouldn't work? My current pixels are 3 strand so I would just leave one of the 22AWG unused, but I guess if I ever got 4 strand pixels it would work for them as well.

The only downside I see is that the jacket is blue which might stick out a little during the day... but free trumps a little blue

Cannot argue with the price. The question is less "will it work" and more "what is the most pixels(current draw)+most distance that will work well".

merryoncherry said:

Cannot argue with the price. The question is less "will it work" and more "what is the most pixels(current draw)+most distance that will work well".

Click to expand...

Well that is something I'll test when it's a little warmer outside and I can setup a mock display to start testing some things out. Since this is my first year with programmable lights I won't be waiting until November to figure out these details.

I'd try to do some testing indoors, but I think the wife's patience is wearing thin with the amount of "stuff" (as she puts it) currently spread around our basement

I have a roll of cable at home which has 7 cores, 2x at about 16awg, and 5 at around 20-22awg. Very similar to the above, but with direct bury jacket and black. I think its original intention was for power connectivity and a few control lines.

Using it for pixels - no issues at all. In one use case, despite it not being twisted pair, I am dumping two differential data signals over 4 of the 5 data cores for around 25 metres (75ft) and that works well too.

You may need to experiment with either grounding or disconnecting the fourth wire, which would change the capacitance.