Well, first of all....to anyone who knows anything about electrical related things; i apologize. This is going to most likely sound like a reallydumb question, but i have asked about 6 people and half of them are sure they are right, and the other half are equally as convinced with their totally opposite answer. lol Basically i am going to be wiring up a number of interior lights LEDS, Cold cathodes and LED strips. Now i am fully educated on how to wire them up and have no problem with installing them, i just dont understand.....Here is my question- **Hypothetically speaking, if i had 50 single pre wired LEDS, that ran on a 12 volt power source....and i had 1 18 gauge wire that tapped into the cars 12 volt battery......if i connected all of these LED's to this power wire, would each LED still get 12 volts of power running to it? Or would they all only get 12 volts if they were directly connected to the battery?** I personally believe that the wire would supply 12 volts to each, but some ppl have made some pretty convincing arguements otherwise. They say the power is equallysplit into each LED so it wouldnt get a full 12 volts but rather a certain percentage. I suppose this does have some logic behind it, much like an amp not being able to supply 100 watts to 2 subs, but instead 500 to each respectively. Like i said i dont get it at all so their guess is as good as mine. I just want to kno if i should run one single power wire from the battery to a switchto 4 LED strips 5 single LEDS and 2 cold cathode kits, or have them all run individually to the car battery so they do get the full 12 volts each. lol i apologize once again, and im embarrassed to have to of had to ask this, so plz dont be too harsh Thanks!
-Electr-etard

 

It depends on how the LEDs are connected. If they are in series, then you divide up the voltage between them all, but if you connect them in parallel, they all will have 12V applied to them. If they are wired in parallel, though, you will be pulling more current.

 

And if you draw more current, that 18 AWG wire can act like a fuse and burn up. If the LEDs draw more than a few amps, I'd use a bigger wire (16-12). I haven't played with LED strips, so I do not know what they draw. LEDs are low power consumers, I would think the strips would follow.

 

18 is big enough, I have wired quite a few leds and cathodes off of the same 18 gauge wire.

 

If these LED's are pre-wired with resistors so a single one will run off of 12V, simply connect them in parallel and they will all get 12V. The currents add. Figure 20 mA per LED (0.02 A) so it will total 1.0A for the set of 50. The 18 gauge wire should be fine. Use like a 5A fuse though because 18 gauge wire can burn up pretty easily if it gets more current than that.

 

alright thanx, so if im connecting the 5 pre wired singles, 2 12 inch cathode kits and 3 led strips to one switch.....i wont be losing any power?

 

losing power? do you mean like your lights will dim and whatnot when you turn them on? well in that case nooooooooo. LEDs take such a small amount of electricity to light up that you would need thousands to drain a sufficient amount of energy from your car... plus that switch should be just fine given that it is rated at maybe 15Amps or more

 

thank you!!! lol i just wanted to make sure i had the brightest lights possible

 

Well to my understand from hanging around with a master tech all my life even if you did have everything the way you wanted it your lights will still dim hense why when you roll down your power windows... the light dims abit because it has to complete a circuit.... it wont be like OH **** MY LEDS LOOK LIKE THERE ****ING OFF!!! you know?

 

ya youll be fine. leds dont use much power at all. just as long as you wire up POSITIVE to positive... and negative to negative youll be fine!