I understand using 20 or 22AWG hookup wire for short runs but now I need to do a 4 wire run from my LED light strip to the Arduino about 6 feet away. Adafruit doesn't sell 4 wire cable and the outside sources re overwhelming in terms of unfamiliar specs (shielded? co-axial? Audio wire?) and seem overkill at 600V rating for my 5V project. Can I use Cat5 or Cat6 cable for this purpose?
Thanks
Wire Help
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Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.
- adafruit_support_bill
- Posts: 88093
- Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:11 am
Re: Wire Help
For a 6' run, you shouldn't have to worry about shielding and such. Cat5/6 is probably OK, although 24Ga is a little on the lightweight side for power and ground. But with 8 conductors, you can use one pair for the signal wires and divide up the other 6 between power and ground.
- adafruit_support_mike
- Posts: 67454
- Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm
Re: Wire Help
The amount of current you can run through a wire depends on the heat it will generate. Copper is an excellent conductor but it does have some resistance.. about 1/12th of an ohm per meter for the 24 gauge wire you'll find in a CAT5 cable.
Officially you calculate the resistance of the wire run, multiply that by the current squared to get the power dissipation, then apply the Stephan-Boltzmann equation to find the equilibrium between heat generation and heat dissipation.. which nobody actually does outside a physics class.
In practice you just look it up in a chart. Here's one that goes all the way down to 32 gauge: http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Wire-Gauge_Ampacity
According to that, a 24 gauge conductor inside a cable can handle 2.1A, but that's an upper limit. I try to keep it below 1A per conductor myself.
Officially you calculate the resistance of the wire run, multiply that by the current squared to get the power dissipation, then apply the Stephan-Boltzmann equation to find the equilibrium between heat generation and heat dissipation.. which nobody actually does outside a physics class.
In practice you just look it up in a chart. Here's one that goes all the way down to 32 gauge: http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Wire-Gauge_Ampacity
According to that, a 24 gauge conductor inside a cable can handle 2.1A, but that's an upper limit. I try to keep it below 1A per conductor myself.
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.