So I just picked up a Sky Ray L1 locally and plan on swapping out the driver to one of these bad boys. When I took it apart to double check on how the LEDs were wired and make sure I had plenty of room for the driver, I was greeted with this:
Those wires look to be pretty thin (22-24AWG ? I’m not sure). Well they look then compared so some of the wiring I see around here. When I upgrade the driver, do I need to upgrade the wiring as well? I’m sure you guys have some first hand knowledge about this. Thanks!
I would change them all to at least 22AWG if they are not that, that’s just me though. I would at least change the wire running from the driver to the first led (output wire). The total current has to flow through that wire. The wire size found in the sky ray kung was guesstimated at around 27 AWG. I changed them all to 22AWG with very little gain but insured the wires didn’t melt down or create a bottleneck for the current. You on the other hand, may notice more gain than I did with the kung. I suspect the wires in your pic’s are 27awg or metric equivalent. I don’t own the light, so I’am not sure but they do seem small in the pics.
22AWG should be good for 7 amps in short runs. 20AWG 11 amps.
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EDIT: I just noticed the driver is for 5 series leds. If you wire the leds in series the current is the same for all leds and the voltage is divided between each led. So you shouldn’t have to change the wire size if wired in series unless you plan on running more than 3 or 4 amps.
