Hi,
I was wondering if somebody could recommend a place to source some cheap, very flexible, stranded, high temperature wire in various gauges. Specifically, I am looking for 18, 20, 22, and 24 awg. Preferably in red and black colored. Preferably with the wires bonded together, where you can pull them apart if you like…this is not totally necessary, though.
Thanks!!
Ebay… search for “26 (gauge,ga,awg) silicone wire” (fill in the gauge that you want). Frankly 26 ga is more than adequate for wiring emitters. This looks promising:
Hi,
Someone (I don’t remember who) recommended, and I bought some silicone wire from:
https://www.buddyrc.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=silicone+wire
I don’t know if they have all of the sizes you’re looking for, but the ones that I got (22 AWG red and black) seem to work pretty well.
18 ga is WAY too big for 99.37864% of all flashlight applications. Too big of a wire risks pulling up traces on driver boards, ripping up parts, having trouble routing the wires, etc. At the lengths and currents involved in flashlights 26 AWG is just fine.
And don’t get me started on teflon wire… way too stiff stuff…
I need 18 AWG wire for creating charging leads to my 4 channel hobby charger. I’d also like to have some 22, 24, and 26 AWG on hand for various applications.
+1
I think it was me Ohaya. 
They are in the states so shipping times are pretty quick. By the way they are listed in Ohio.
You may also find silicone wire in about any hobby shop that deals in RC stuff. You might check around your local area.
I had to check this out, because well, that’s what I do. 
All wires were 2.5” long (worst case, most lights can get away with less than this). Tested at 3A (typical singl XM-L light drive curent) and 6A (a bit more aggressive for the modder in all of us). I waited until the voltage drop stabilized due to conductor heating before taking the reading.
The 28 AWG was not silicone, the others were. I included it because many budget lights are wired with it.
28AWG at 3A: 39.0mV (13 mOhm), wire got very slightly warm
26AWG at 3A: 32.8mV (10.9 mOhm), wire did not get noticeable warm
22AWG at 3A: 10.7mV (3.6mOhm), wire did not get noticeably warm
28AWG at 6A: 92.3mV (15.4 mOhm), wire got very hot and started give off a smell but did not melt
26AWG at 6A: 72.4mV (12.1 mOhm), wire got very noticeably warm
22AWG at 6A: 21.6mV (3.6 mOhm), wire did not get noticeably warm
So, in the 3A case, the 22mV savings going to 22AWG is minimal, probably not helping much in the way of efficiency or run time.
In the 6A case, the 50mV savings is significant, and there is obvious energy loss in the wire.
In high drive cases, I would recommend going to 22 or 24 AWG for emitter wiring.
Edit: as pointed out below, the conductor material of these wires is not confirmed. They could be anything. Still the 26 and 22 AWG wires, came from flashlight or from sources we commonly use. Definitely not a scientific test, but IMO it has some practical indication.
Hi,
Yes, sorry I couldn’t remember :)!
I suspect that your copper wires are not all copper… a quick check:
26AWG copper has 41 milliohms/foot. 2.5” = 0.20 feet. 0.20 feet * 41 milliohms is 8 milliohms. 3 amps into 8 milliohms should give a drop of 3 x 0.008 -> 24 millivolts.
That’s a valid point, they may not be copper (I had to read back to make sure I didn’t suggest they were 
).
The wires in our lights may or may not be copper either (in budget lights, most likely not).
The 22AWG is from I-O. The 26 AWG came out of a flashlight, it could have been the BTU Shocker or a 5x XM-L light I have; one that had a 2.5” run to the emitters.
The 28 AWG was lying around here.
Some of the variance from the AWG spec could be the conductor material. For sure, some of it is conductor heating because I can see that with the voltage drop increasingfrom initial contact to a stable reading.
So, definitely not a scientific test, and not many of my tests are controlled enough to be scientific. I’ll be the first to admit that. original comment edited for clarity. Thanks for double-cecking my double-check.
[quote=relic38]
That’s a valid point, they may not be copper (I had to read back to make sure I didn’t suggest they were )./quote]
I have checked a LOT of wire for it’s copperosity. Some “100% pure oxygen free wire” from a premium supplier had three times the resistance of pure copper. And it was magnetic! General rule: If it’s made in China, it ain’t pure copper.
I never use anything less than 24AWG, 22AWG if it will fit. The wire length plays a big part in what size is needed for stability. I once wired up a devoted charging lead with balancing for a hobby charger, to charge a flashlight pack that could not be charged individually. I used 22AWG for the leads at about 1 1/2 foot long. Charging at 5 amps the wire became very hot. 22AWG should have been could for 7 amps in short runs. I guess 1 1/2 foot isn’t a short run because it did become uncomfortable hot. So I remade the leads with 20AWG silicone wire and fixed the heating issue.
I know most china flashlights are built with 26AWG wire or smaller and it does seem to work. But you really don’t know how hot that wire is getting inside the light. Plus if its silicone wire the melting temperature is much higher than a plastic insulator wire. The silicone insulator maybe whats keeping it from melting in some lights. For instance the kung, most are seeing around 6 amps. The wire is some where around 27AWG or a metric equivalent. It works but how hot does that wire get and how much energy is lost in heat in the wire. I replaced my kung with 22AWG for piece of mind and very little performance gain realized. I just didn’t like the idea of 6 amps going through 27AWG wire. So while the smaller wire does seem to work, I always replace mine on any driver unless its a 1amp or less driver. Relics test show that in high current lights that the wire inside maybe cooking. Just my two cents.
I use 22AWG silicone from IOS for about everything, that's the biggest that will comfortably fit the wire notches in 16mm Sinkpads.
It does burn green with a butane torch, so there's at least some copper in it.
I just did that quick check, none of these are magnetic.
A 26 AWG steel wire at 6A would probably have turned into a light bulb filament!
My general rule-of-thumb on emitter wires is, go with the largest diameter wire possible without shorting on the reflector and without being a pain in the butt when soldering onto the driver.
I just had to try it:
20AWG steel @ 6A: 170.3 mV and climbing slowly (I got tired of waiting) (28.3 mOhm), extremely hot, coating is gooey soft, no smoke
I wish I had some 24 or 26 AWG steel wire right now.
That’s 6 amps divided among 4 emitters… 1.5A per emitter.
I got my last wires from hobbyking.
texaspyro, unfortunately some kungs only use one pair of emitter wires from the driver. In that case, 27 awg would be an issue.
That would imply that the LEDs are series connected. Since they are certainly not dumping 6 amps into each LED, then the driver would be a boost driver. Tailcap current might be 6 amps, but the LED current would still be under 1.5 amps. (6A * 85% driver efficiency / 4 LEDs -> 1.28 amps to the series string).
No, not necessarily wired in series, it would be a parallel array fed by two wires. That's about the worst possible way to do it but would you really be surprised?