LED light strips: wire in series or in parallel?

TomY

Alden Forum Moderator
Jun 22, 2004
2,759
Alden 38' Challenger yawl Rockport Harbor
There is an excellent article on terminating small wires over at Compass Marine. I bought the recommended stripper, crimper and terminals and have been very pleased with the results. http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/terminating_small_wires
That's great if you're putting a terminal on just one 26-28 gauge wire. But with LED lights, you'll likely be connecting the tiny light leads to a circuit feed of at least 16 gauge. And if you parallel them, you can go several ways.

I had this very problem wiring LED indicator lights on a switch panel I built. With 16 LED indicator lights, I had 16 ground wires, to figure out.

I went to the Blue Seas people, they work with this stuff all the time. That was a good move! They showed me how they deal with these LED's. They use the small yellow connectors on single wire terminals. But they gang the grounds so they don't have to find terminal screws for every one.



Blue Seas puts at least 4 of the 26(I think) gauge wire into a 18/20 gauge crimp terminal. I tested wire fit with various sizes and found combinations that worked. You tug test them of course to make sure they're secure.



The above photos are all from Blues Seas website.

They also helped me out with chafe protection on the small wires. Panel wiring is exempt from fusing. You do it none the less but with these small wires, it's not feasible. Blues seas doesn't (fuse the LED wires) and says with small milliamps, it's not a worry.

They were really helpful.
 
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Likes: Juanona
Jan 24, 2017
666
Hunter 34 Toms River Nj
You can only install so many in series before voltage drop comes into play. I did my cabin all with there own power supply so I don't have to wire a step up repeater.