Current rating of waterproof connectors?

kane

Dedicated elf
Joined
Dec 23, 2010
Messages
1,033
Location
Trigg (Northern suburbs of Perth)
I use a heap of the waterproof connectors (purchased from Ray, but obviously available elsewhere as well), but just wondering if anyone knows what current they'll safely support - or is there an easy way of finding this out?

I would take a guess at around 5A, but that's only my gut feeling!

I can obviously ask Ray, but obviously you have to take what he says with a grain of salt.
 

kane

Dedicated elf
Joined
Dec 23, 2010
Messages
1,033
Location
Trigg (Northern suburbs of Perth)
David_AVD said:
If you have a micrometer, count the wire strands and measure the diameter of one strand.

I wrote a quick calculator to work out the cross sectional area:

https://www.audiovisualdevices.com.au/calculators/cables.htm

Once you have the CSA, you can look up the specs in the ACL wiki:

http://auschristmaslighting.com/wiki/Wire_Sizes
I do have a caliper meter, but not sure how accurate it is - will give it a go tonight

Otherwise, might try and compare the strand sizes to a known cable size and go from there

Thanks once again!
 

lithgowlights

Dedicated elf
Joined
May 6, 2010
Messages
1,023
Last year the maximum vurrent I ran through them was around 3.5A (on the return core of an RGB Item) without issues, but that was probably a little exceeding their real capacity. I believe Ray has said 2 to 3 Amps, to various people so I guess it is whatever you feel safe pushing them to.

For higher current items I have used Anderson connectors to power remote boards rather than run a lot of current through the 2 pin versions
 

David_AVD

Grandpa Elf
Community project designer
Generous elf
Joined
Jun 12, 2010
Messages
4,681
Location
Victoria Point (Brisbane)
It's worth counting and measuring the strands as the 2, 3, 4 & 5 pin ones had different sized cable when I chose mine last year.
 

kane

Dedicated elf
Joined
Dec 23, 2010
Messages
1,033
Location
Trigg (Northern suburbs of Perth)
lithgowlights said:
Last year the maximum vurrent I ran through them was around 3.5A (on the return core of an RGB Item) without issues, but that was probably a little exceeding their real capacity. I believe Ray has said 2 to 3 Amps, to various people so I guess it is whatever you feel safe pushing them to.

For higher current items I have used Anderson connectors to power remote boards rather than run a lot of current through the 2 pin versions
Yeah, I think I only went up to around 3.5a max as well. My problem is that I like to use them for everything, to make setup as easy as possible. But no point running a 10A cable and then hooking it up to a connector that can only support 3A.
 
Top