Need help with wire gauge and the maxflex driver

[bluecrow76]

I'm building a quad emitter M@G with the maxflex driver. I have the entire head built already with 26 AWG silver teflon wire.

I've done some searching and have found that the max current I should put through this wire is 2.5A. I will be driving this light on either 2x18650 (7.4V nominal) and up to 9AA (10.8V nominal). Should my 26AWG wire to from the switch to the driver be able to handle the current??? I know the higher my input voltage the lower my current draw will be. I'm going to keep it set to 700mA normally, but I don't want to have to worry if I want to bump it up to 1.2A output.

Thanks!

 

[VidPro]

you can stuff 10amps through that wire but would you want to.
if you put fat copper even single strand to the driver, you would loose less power in the resistance of the wire.
then on the other end of the driver, where you have more voltage and less amperage, you dont need to worry so much about it.

which brings up , if its going into a MAG , you have all kinds of resistance in the switch array, springs, and switch springs and connections, not to mention if you connect using the bulb base. and i dont think they even use straight up copper in there, some alloy wire of fat size.

that stuff is a bit puny, myself i would go up a few guages, prefer solid because high frequency doesnt matter, and your not going to flex it a lot, the solid wire will have more metal per MM so to speak of the same physical size.
then if the leds were series , that stuff would probably be ok for the other side.

i have not done THAT yet myself, but i did do a few Nfex in similarity.

i was totally wondering about all that myself, because if your battery is low voltage, gonna be a hefty AMPS load on the input of the thing, and on wire size its the amps that counts most.

nothing you didnt know, everything will WORK, the wires are i assume going to be short, but i would think the same way you did. and think about upping the guage on the input, even if i might "make do" with what i got at the time.

what the max draw is going to be 9amps or so.

 

[bluecrow76]

Thanks for the info VP!

One of the other issues I was dealing with in this build was what type of connector to use to connect the light module with the switch module. I didn't want to just solder and twist the wires. BentHeadTX recommended a floppy drive power extension cable. All I could find was an ATX fan extension cable, but it had 3 wires and that was all I needed. The wire on the connector was 22-24 AWG and had a heat resistant jacket, so I ended up cutting it down to size and connecting it directly to the maxflex. I found a CPU fan in a junk box with the same type of wire and used that for connection from the battery terminals on the M@G switch. I kept the 26 AWG for the switch connection as the current through there is small.

Detailed info on my build is here.

 

[VidPro]

i loved your connector idea. i dont apply it often enough myself
socketed leds and dissasembleable units that would solve the "better led every month" problem

i find that some of the computer power stuff can be more resistive wire, of course that is becase there can be a big PILE of "free" wire from all the computer junk that died, or was altered or modded. so i use the free stuff first , if it will work.

those RC connectors , like "JST" or something can have some really fat wire on them for the size of the connector, it is soo cool to have connections that are barely bigger than the wire itself.