Wire For Rgb Lights

[musicman 0]

I know I will have to get some extension wire for RGB lights when I start building and then placing them. i was looking at Ray Wu's and while the price is nice the shipping kills the price.  I was looking for something more local and found this at Lowes http://www.lowes.com/pd_162127-295-49276902_0__?productId=4326695&Ntt=4+conductor+18+awg+extension+cable&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNtt%3D4%2Bconductor%2B18%2Bawg%2Bextension%2Bcable&facetInfo=

 

Will this work? or is it not going to work for RGB lights for some reason?

 

Thanks

[Dave H 10]

Will it work?? - Yes

 

Is it your best option - Probably not

 

The wire that you selected is a solid core wire not stranded.  It will have a limited amount of bending and flexing before it breaks

[inspector4 0]

I have used some of this........Cable    from ebay

 

Steve

[mscollectibles 0]

This is what I use on my RGB & it works great.

 

http://www.safemart.com/Alarm-Wire/4-Conductor-22-Gauge-Alarm-Wire-500-FT-22AWG2C500-Stranded.htm

 

Sorry just checked they changed to a $500 min order

 

Mike

Edited December 14, 2013 by mscollectibles

[musicman 0]

Thanks for the answers, like I said I am looking for something that I can buy more local, or free shipping, because shipping wire is really expensive.  I take it steve that you have had no problems with that wire when it comes to running RGB.  500 foot sounds like a lot right now, but I know it won't be once I start laying everything out!  

 

Any more advice on wire, please let me know.

[Lee_N_the_NorthWest 10]

I use Stranded CAT5e cable. you can buy it for around $120.00 per 1000' pull box. works great and have had no issues running up to 50' from controller to strip.

[musicman 0]

We have a lot of Cat 5 cable around but I didn't know you could use it.  You just hook up certain colors and remember which ones they were to work?

[Jim H 0]

I have been using this for the last 3 years with no issues at all---

 

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10239&cs_id=1023904&p_id=4043&seq=1&format=2

 

Shipping is reasonable.

[Lee_N_the_NorthWest 10]

Correct, pick a pair you want to use I use the Orange and Orange/white for the clock and data  then I use all the striped wires as the Neg lead  and all the solid as the Pos lead.

 

On the 3 wire setups I just twist the Orange and Orange/white together as one.

 

For the dumb (single pixel) stuff I useeach pair as one lead. Orange - Orange/white = Positive ( + )  then I use the blue - blue /white for the Blue, the green - green/white for green, and the brown - brown/white for the red

 

This is only for the RGB 5 or 12 volt DC lighting.

[Bob Chrisp 0]

Amazon has 22 AWG flat rgb cable- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008LR6EAY/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

$11.66 for 66 feet.

 

Bob

[danj 5]

I used some solid stranded wire from Home Depot this year for my RGB extension wire.  I just found one of them broken this weekend.  I thought I had (another) bad solder job done by yours truly.  When I swapped out strips I found that nothing worked when hooked up to this section.  Replaced it; wa-la.  Everything up & running.  I am going to go with some type of stranded wire next year.  This was easy to use, though and readily available....