Wire for the TPR

chilloutdocdoc

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My TPR strobes are starting to take shape, but I was wondering what kind of wire is everybody using to hook them up?

My goal was to have them hook up like a standard string of lights, with a male and a female plug, one on each end. I was thinking of using 18ga lamp cord, but would have no way to solder that to the PCB as it is so tiny.

Any suggestions?
 

dmoore

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Speak to the CAT!

images
 

chilloutdocdoc

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I was thinking cat5, but it's very fragile stuff, and doesn't quite carry the current i'm looking for... Ideally would like to have them in strands of 10-15 which could be as much as 5.25A since i'm using 1W led's
 

dmoore

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chilloutdocdoc said:
I was thinking cat5, but it's very fragile stuff

Fragile? Fragile is my 97 year old grand father.... They switched to CAT5 from leather in for production of CAT-o-NINE tails due to it's durability! You could tow your car out of a ditch with the stuff! And the colors! You don't get that with plain old SPT2 brown, black or green cord. :)

Wouldn't that assume constant draw? But these are not constant? What happens if 10 of them were wired together and then measurements of actual consumption and power drop per performed?
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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Cat 5 cable depends on whether it is patch cable or fixed wiring cable. The stuff that is for fixed wiring has only a single strand of copper per conductor and is quite fragile when it comes to being moved around/rolled up regularly. The multi-strand cat 5 is indeed fairly un-fragile.
 

fasteddy

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Steve22537

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I've used irrigation valve cable, comes in may colours and many multicore configurations and is designed for outdoor / underground use and its cheap. Reticulation and hardware shops stock it. On my strobes I was able to salvage some clear wire from a set of strings in brought from China (200M, 240v, 1200 LED's for $A14.00), the LEDs where crap but the cable was fine.

http://www.perthirrigation.com.au/listProduct/WIRE+AND+CABLE/LOW+VOLTAGE+CABLE

Steve
 

DanoNJ

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I soldered the board with some single strand CAT5 wire about 3" long and plan on attaching that to old mini ican strings. No trigger on my strobes so I only need a 2 wire set up.
 
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