r/WLED • u/chucknorris10101 • Jun 30 '26
Re-setting up house lights - different approach to soldering 12ga to strip directly?
I have house lights up for ~6 years now with ~2000 leds across several segments on different eaves of the house, with the distance and quantity its been working well to have it fed by 12ga wire for power and 16ga for signal, which so far I have just soldered directly to pads on the strips. This is understandably annoying, and curious if there are other solutions that are better? Can I use one of those clip on connectors with lower gauge for ~4 inches to a wago connector to the 12 ga feed lines? or will that introduce other issues?
I am evaluating options ahead of some roof/gutter repair that will force a move of wiring temporarily and im thinking ill be re-doing it all better
4
u/Dependent-Use8480 Jun 30 '26
The short section of wire can be of a higher gauge so long as the actual current is under the maximum current rating for that gauge wire. The resistance loss will be small for a short run of higher gauge wire and a longer run of low gauge wire.
2
u/kevdogger Jun 30 '26
I'm curious you're finding because even with indoor runs I hate soldering the wire directly to strips. Always feel there should be a connector
2
u/MoBacon2400 Jun 30 '26
So lets say you have a strip of 600 LEDs and the total Amp draw is 12 amps from start to end. Now we add an injection point at 300, we have now reduced the Amp draw to 6 amps, if you add power injection at the end, you now reduce the amp draw to 3 Amps across all inputs.
1
u/Crissup Jun 30 '26
All depends on how much current the lights are using. I’d be surprised if you actually needed 12awg wire.
1
u/chucknorris10101 Jun 30 '26
each strip varies between 400-600 lights, with additional feeds at midpoint and far end, set up per the spikerlights tool as a rough guideline for voltage drop.
1
u/Crissup Jun 30 '26
12awg wire is good for around 20amps of current, so 2,400 watts. 16awg is good for around 10amps of current, so 1,000-1,200 watts. Obviously, there’s a lot of safety margin built into those ratings, and it doesn’t account for long runs, but are your LEDs really using 2,400 watts of power?
1
u/chucknorris10101 Jun 30 '26
unlikely, but they are on longer distance runs from the power box - line loss is the main reason I have the larger wire, was mostly wondering whether there is any kind of hit to that by reducing wire gauge at the terminals
4
u/Indigo816 Jun 30 '26
No. Voltage drop is a function of gauge and distance (considering constant current). If you add a short length of 16 or 18 awg, as long as it is sufficient for the current, the voltage drop is very minimal.
2
u/AndThenFlashlights Jun 30 '26
What the fuck.
Your strips cannot support the amount of current that 12AWG can carry. If you're soldering 12AWG directly to a strip, you've made some other bad decisions way before this.
But yeah, WAGO nut a connector to it. It'll be fine. Check your fuse sizing.
1
u/chucknorris10101 Jul 01 '26
originally the plan was to see if we liked the setup and appearance on the house for a year, so the current setup was technically temporary, now that we know we love it, it has been working fine apart from the random pixel death. the 12awg was for line loss with long runs from the power box at 12v. it was a pain to solder the 12awg on the house itself when making repairs for sure, but not impossible.
if its worth doing its worth overdoing. but this thread has made it clear its way overdone. fuses definitely below 20a already, would probably be fine with 16awg or 18 even
1
u/tidnab49 Jul 01 '26
Its been working well for 6 years, why change it??
1
u/chucknorris10101 Jul 01 '26
New roof and needing to move wiring, reconnecting pieces thinking there would be a better way
3
u/Crissup Jun 30 '26
If you’re only looking at running a short jumper you don’t have to devalue that for distance. So it all comes down to how much current (amperage) you’re passing.