LED Wire

What gauge wire are you guys using to wire up LED's? Where are you getting the wire also? I went to my local Lowes and they only have separate strands of wire. Nothing that is already in a casing, like the red and black wire together inside the casing. Some guy told me to use speaker wire, but I think that will be tacky. Another guy, electrician, told me to use the solid thermostat wire. I think that will be too hard to maneuver around in tight places. Any ideas out there?

I wired several led's to long runs of red and black 18 guage.

22ga paired speaker wire works just fine. As far as tacky looking, is the wire going to be exposed? If so, cover it in loom or mesh type expandable wire protective sleeve.

Check www.waytechwire.com

The wire is not going to be exposed, but I do not want anyone to get it confused with real audio wire in case I need a fix.

Nu Bu: The wire you are talking about was it the red and black together in a casing or 2 separate wires?

Two separate wires. It's just tucked in the corner of my seat bases, can hardly see it when you're looking for it.

OK, I found some black speaker wire that is low voltage and flat. I guess I could use that and see how it works out. I am running the wire with the rest of the wire for the boat. However I am tagging it along the way with an silver marker as LED. This way in case I have to take it in for major repair, the dealer will know what the wire is for. I will post pics when I am completed.

Mikes got it 22AGW works great 100 feet of Black and Red wire for like 10 bucks.

22ga. Cheap, easy to pull and hide.

G how can I get in touch with Mike?

Sorry I was saying TigeMike was correct.

I get it at local electronic supply store. HDB electronic in Redwoood city. But I feel ya on trying to get some simple Red and Black wire. Ya think the stuff would be everywhere. Some places have it some dont.

TIP: You can take the single strand wire and brade them together. Simply take too peices of wire the same length and put them in a electric drill. The the other 2 ends and put them in a vice or have a friend hold them in some vice grips. Stretch out the wire so its straight and turn on the drill. It will spin the 2 pieces together like a candy cane.
"Easy Pezey Lemon Squezey"

PS was Pooty Tang a Eddie Murphy skit. I remember it from some movie? what was it

I think I will stick with the black flat speaker wire for now. I have plenty of black zip ties to tie it in with the factory cable. Then tuck it up in the wire loom. I will post pics as as I go through the project.

Pootie Tang was a movie with Chris Rock in it. Back in 2001 Lance Crouther played Pootie Tang. See, my damie, Pootie Tang don't wa-da-tah to the shama cow... 'cause thats a cama cama leepa-chaiii, dig? Cole me on the panny sty.

was it a movie called fear of a black hat?

No. The movie was called Pootie Tang. Directed by Louis C.K. Google it.

I recommend running a bus of the red and black wire around the boat, with loops pulled down within 12" of LED fixture locations. Then, use these things to connect the pigtails from each light. They usually have a pair of 12" leads. All you do is pull the bus wire leads apart and put these connectors in.This type of line tap is the best as they don't pop apart like the ones that you parallel the two wires. You should power the circuit off a separate relay connected to your courtesy light circuit. I like keeping things separate.


(Message edited by cyclonecj on December 20, 2008)

I run my cupholder LEDs off phone wire. Keep in mind most LEDs don't like seeing more than 14V, your boat puts out 14.4V when the battery is fully charged. Some voltage drop is good in this situation, I purposely added a 10' loop of wire before the first LED.

The LED lights I have are on 30ga. leads. How do you splice them into the larger wire sizes. The connectors shown above are for 22ga min; that is a lot larger than the 30ga leads. I'm afraid I'd end up with a loose connection bound to give me problems later.

^^^ Solder and heat-shrink

Please do not use those cheap 3M connectors. I have spent many years in car audio, and I used to install in police cars. I have seen too many broken wires due to those T Tap connectors. They are really bad to use. The safest, and best connection is to solder, and use shrink wrap. Or at the very least, electrical tape. Check out waytekwire.com

OK, So here is what I have learned so far. Thermostat wire will not work at all like some electrician told me. What an idiot for me believing him. What I did was where the courtesy light already is located I clipped the wires there, solder the wires together, electric tape each one, then shrink tape. This way no H2O and they will not come apart. For the outside grill and on the back hatches, I connected both sets of wire and then to the courtesy like before, solder, tape, shrink, etc. I have all the interior lights completed. On the courtesy lights I used the inner shell as you will see in pics later, pulled out the center connectors and then dremel out a slot for the LED wire. Then I had to dremel/shave the LED casing some so that it would fit into the round courtesy shell. Put a little hot glue gun action to the back of it to stick and around the LED casing edge and let it set up. Connect all the wires, put the lens back in place and it looks as if it came from the factory. For my extra lights I ran a black and red wire and used a drill as G suggested so that they are wrapped around both sides of the boat, something like Psyclone suggested. The black speaker wire was way too large and would be difficult to use. The places that I want lights, I just wired them in, solder, tape, shrink and they work just fine. I have 4 more to install and I will be completed. I am hoping to have pics up tonight and should have been done a long time ago, but the neighbors keeps stopping by and want to know what I am doing and they stay longer than 1 minute and I can not get it completed.

"G" send ing you an PM.