Author Topic: electrical questions  (Read 2065 times)

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Offline Melvang

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electrical questions
« on: Thu, 03 October 2013, 06:12:33 »
Alright got some electrical questions for you guys relating to power requirements, minimum sized wire, and one other issue.

1.  In attempting to find current draw specs for the mod/smart 12" and 4" CCFL tubes all I can find is 5mAv for a single tube.  This is the same number that I have found for both 12" and the 4" tubes.  For calculating current draw to figure minimum wire size would that number scale in a linear fashion?  Also, I would like to keep a little head room here so would adding say 25% to this be a good idea or should I add a touch more.  If my brain is grasping this correctly I would be using 25mAv for total draw on two 12" tubes and two 4" tubes.

2.  If the wire size in the cable that I was planning on using for this is to small can I split the current between 2 sets of wires and cut the current load on each one in half?  Basically running 2 sets of volt+ and two sets at volt-?

3.  For this setup what would be the minimum wire size that I should be using?  If splitting the load across 2 sets of wires would help what would be the minimum wire size I should use?  These 4 tubes will be the only things ever ran on this as well.

Melvang
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Offline metalliqaz

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Re: electrical questions
« Reply #1 on: Thu, 03 October 2013, 06:24:38 »
1. Current is measured in Amps (A or mA for milliamps), mAv is not a unit of current.  Current depends on how you wire you components. (series vs parallel)
2. You could but you don't need to and it wouldn't make any sense (see below)
3. When you say wire size, you're talking about the wires you used to wire up all the components?  Doesn't really matter.  (see below)

You are worrying about wire size WAY too much, IMHO.  We are talking about a few milliamps here.  For some comparison, the tiny traces on a circuit board usually have to carry hundreds of milliamps to drive the LEDs on a backlit keyboard.  Don't worry about it.  I do have some expertise in this area (Masters degree)

Offline metalliqaz

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Re: electrical questions
« Reply #2 on: Thu, 03 October 2013, 06:34:01 »
PS: I just looked up a mod/smart CCFL.  I see the site that gave you the 5mAv specification.  I don't know what its real power requirements are, but I suspect that it is using more more power than 25mW.  I'm doubting that you could drive four of them off a single USB connection.

EDIT: typo
« Last Edit: Thu, 03 October 2013, 06:43:00 by metalliqaz »

Offline Melvang

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Re: electrical questions
« Reply #3 on: Thu, 03 October 2013, 06:46:25 »
PS: I just looked up a mod/smart CCFL.  I see the site that gave you the 5mAv specification.  I don't know what its real power requirements are, but I suspect that it is using more more power than 25mW.  I'm doubting that you could drive four of them off a single USB connection.

EDIT: typo

They would not be driven off a USB connection as that is only 5 volts and I have not seen any CCFL yet that will run off anything less than 12 volt.  Just using that size of wire.
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Offline metalliqaz

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Re: electrical questions
« Reply #4 on: Thu, 03 October 2013, 06:53:59 »
Ah yes, I didn't even look at the voltage!

Okay so if we're talking four of them (in parallel) and you're running off of 12V DC power from the power supply, then I don't see any reason why regular old PC power wires wouldn't work.

Offline Melvang

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Re: electrical questions
« Reply #5 on: Thu, 03 October 2013, 08:08:11 »
Ah yes, I didn't even look at the voltage!

Okay so if we're talking four of them (in parallel) and you're running off of 12V DC power from the power supply, then I don't see any reason why regular old PC power wires wouldn't work.

The power wires in the PC aren't what I am worried about.  Where the questions arise is wires that I am using between the PC and the inverter.  They are the size of the wires inside a USB cord.
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Offline metalliqaz

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Re: electrical questions
« Reply #6 on: Thu, 03 October 2013, 09:00:29 »
Oh, I see.  Well, like I said up above, I'm not convinced that we have the specs correct for these parts; but none the less I suspect that wires of that size will work fine.

In general, when we talk about sizing cables to carry a certain amount of current, what we are really talking about is managing resistance.  The resistance of a wire is inversely proportional to its thickness.  There are definitely other effects that become important when engineering a product, but for carrying power resistance is the dominant factor.  If a design uses come current (I) and the cable has an inherent resistance (R), then it will cause a voltage drop V = I*R.  That voltage drop will dissipate power in the form of heat and could become dangerous if it overheats.  To reduce that effect, you either carry less current or use a bigger wire which reduces R.

The thing is that we are talking about pretty small current values.  You would need one heck of a flimsy wire to cause yourself problems leading to failure.  I would think your main concern would be to make sure you properly insulate everything to be able to carry 12V.

Offline Melvang

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Re: electrical questions
« Reply #7 on: Thu, 03 October 2013, 09:08:33 »
Yup I did some more digging and I am going to go ahead with this as planned.  I found a couple random sites and forum posts that said the current draw was only 5mv for a pair of 12" tubes.  Now I do have some floating around the house.  If I wanted to measure the current (i do have a multi-meter) would I have to break the circuit and put my leads as part of the circuit or can I just measure across 2 points of the circuit to measure the amps?

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Offline Neebio

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Re: electrical questions
« Reply #8 on: Thu, 03 October 2013, 21:48:11 »
If I wanted to measure the current (i do have a multi-meter) would I have to break the circuit and put my leads as part of the circuit or can I just measure across 2 points of the circuit to measure the amps?

Melvang

You got it.  If you want to measure current, you need to break the circuit somewhere and attach the multimeter in the break.  If you wanted to measure voltage drop, you would do that by measuring across two points.  Make sure you don't fry your multimeter though, make sure your leads are the right way around and you're set to the appropriate setting.
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