I guess I'm older school, LOL ...

http://cdn.makezine.com/uploads/2009...blelacing1.jpg

I agree about soldering in this case, though in my background (27-1/2 years avionics maintenance) soldering was generally avoided for wiring runs. But that's because the vibration of aircraft is rather hard on single strand wire (which is what multi-strand wire becomes when you solder a connection).

Yes. You can see in my avatar where I have two wires going into one crimp.

^ This. Depending on the wire gauge, you may have to step up on terminal capacity.


And as Mark stated, voltage drop is an important consideration. Most guys use a 5% drop since auto accessories are designed for 12V and the alternator puts out 13.8V. I have always used a 2% drop because I tend to over-engineer for safety when it comes to electrical and 2% is the non-automotive standard I believe.

What happens when the pigtail on the lights are of a smaller gauge than desired and then are in a sealed housing?

There's not much you can do about that other than run the proper gauge wire up to the pigtail. The pigtail is usually quite small and capable of handling the draw capacity of the component for the short length. I have never had it become an issue. But you are right in the sense that when that wire is extended the gauge should also be increased.

Since you'd be wiring the lights up in parallel, and not in series, then that wire would presumably be sufficiently sized to carry the current for the one light assembly. It doesn't need to carry the current for the other lights (but the interconnecting wire would). As for voltage drop, as 14Sport alludes, it isn't only the size of the wire that affects voltage drop. It's also how far that smaller wire runs. Since it's just a short pigtail, it will have a negligible effect on the voltage reaching the LEDs.

Wow. Cool, lacing!

There's a few guys at work that will only lace, I sure do respect the craft that goes into this work. That's putting love into your work.

Most others it's release-able cable ties done.

See if I can dig up some photos of what a 1026 x 1026 router looks like all wired in nice and neat.

That wasn't actually my work in the image, though it is how I used to do lacing on ... C-47s. Yeah, I'm that old. ART-13 transmitter and BC-348 receivers. Vacuum tubes. Discrete components. Air dielectric variable capacitors the size of an egg carton. Miss those days.

Ahh fellow RF guy!

I'm on the SATCOM side .....fleet of 17Ghz 2 kW single and multi stage collector klystron tubes. Yes, tubes still in today's world of smaller. When you need brute force power in a narrow band nothing beats it, oh and taken care of they last years.

Dig the avionics...never made it past broadcast lol

So, do I just take the advertised watts and divide by 12 to get amps, or do i need to use 13.85?

I use 12 for the ease and to be on the safe side. Better to account for more amps than you are actually going to run for wiring.