What awg wire to use for connecting 6 to 8 pod lights?

Wire size is based on the amps you are drawing. Temperature and wire insulation will also affect the amps it will carry. If you draw too many amps over wire, it can overheat, melt the insulation, cause a short circuit and potentially a fire. Also ensure your connections are tight, loose connections generate heat with same results. Google or electric handbook can tell you amp limits for wire.

 

Nice!

 

How did you connect all the connector to one wire?

 

+1, just getting more detailed.

Specifically, it has to do with the vibration and fatigue of the metals within the environment.

Solder will wick beyond the joint, and creates a hard spot on the wire which creates a concentrated flex point.

Mobile wiring is always stranded wire specifically so that if any strand breaks anywhere, the other strands are there to carry the load past that break. Put another way, each strand, while subject to the same flexing, flexes different amounts, so the fatigue each conductor experiences is different.

Once the wire is tinned with solder, it creates a solid core wire, and the flexing is concentrated on the one area where the solder stops working up into the wire, which is an inconsistent distance, which poses a risk of breaking all the conductors equally at the same time, which is what crimping avoids. By creating the crimp and heat shrinking the wire, the stresses are distributed across the wire for a longer distance, reducing the point loading, and offering a longer lasting and more reliable connection.

Also, crimping requires less tooling, minimal skill, and is far more consistently repeatable.

 

Not to mention too small a wire causes voltage drops that limit current and performance which is why and how the wire gets hot. Too much of the power is being used heating the wire vs running the accessory.

 

Good discussion and a helpful explanation (at least for me) on crimping versus soldering. My real life experience with failed crimp connections has led me away from them for automotive stuff, and i consider them inferior despite what science says. Your explanation above makes sense, but I've only ever had solder connections fail at a PCB connection point. Cant crimp those. Never had a solder connection break or fail when splicing wires as we are describing.

 

Guys
Can we focus on making a harness
Not debating about crimping or soldering

 

Sorry to derail your precious thread with a friendly discussion of a few post that I found helpful and educational. I'll see myself out. Good luck with your lights. Happy New Year.

 

Thanks
Happy New Year

 

Are you looking to have one wire feed these and branch out to each light? Or have one wire feed each light individually? The thing you have to remember as well is amp tables are the full run. So from the source (which even if indirect, should be your battery or a properly sized power distribution of some sort) back to the ground. So lets say you have 10' from the battery up to the lights, and 5' back to ground. You will need to calculate that as a 15' run. So lets say 8 lights, 3A each, 15' run; you'd want a 12 gauge wire if you are comfortable with a 5% voltage drop, 8 gauge if you want to keep it under 2%. There are alot of variables here, so if it were me, I would decide on how you are going to buiold it and route it, then determine gauge. I built a harness for @memario1214 last year (? maybe 2 years ago) for a ridiculous amount of lights on his roof rack. IIRC, I used 2 8 or 10 gauge wires for the main run, then split them down to 14s to the lights themselves (as that is what Deutsch will support in the DT series, which is what Diode Dynamics uses)

 

I want to make a harness similar to this

From what I got here, its better to make two separate one to their own fuse on my switch panel

 

Cut and solder at each branch

 

Similar like the video I posted?

 

So I should build my harness like this?
Connecting 14awg connector to a 10awg main wire?

 

I didn't watch the video, but essentially like the drawing you just posted.

 

Can you watch the video
between 2:40- 3:20
People were debating about the method of connecting them

I want to hear your opinion since you actual made the harness

 

Just watched. What part of the method are you wondering about? solder vs crimp, or the location of the cuts he made, or the orientation of the solder joints? Tons of ways to vary a harness to your needs. Not really one right solution.

 

Yeah mostly how he connected and cover the them.

Ill be using solder seal wire connectors because I never had a issue with them and its allot easier applying the solder

I'm more concern how to cover that T joints properly

 

You can get paint on wire coating to use where heat shrink can’t go.