I bought a 24V/25W LED driver from a local shop and the sales assistant sold me a short length of 20AWG control wire to go with it.
In order to buy more wire (elsewhere) I looked up the UK (mm2) equivalent and found it to be 0.5mm2, however I notice that the driver's output terminals have written on them Sec:24VDC 0.75. Is "0.75" a wire gauge recommendation? Should I be using 0.75 wire rather than 0.5?
Best Answer
20 AWG is rated for 5 amps, so it's good for taking any strip as far as you ought to.
I prefer 22 AWG or 0.25 mm2, and stranded wire. The reason is, if the wires are any thicker, they will tend to "wag the dog", pulling the LED strip out of shape/position and potentially tearing off the solder pad.
The "0.75" on the output terminals is surely not a wire gauge recommendation, but read the data sheet to be sure. Remember when installing mains equipment (and a driver is that), you must install in accordance with the instructions and labeling. That indicates the conditions under which the item was certified as safe by UL, CSA, ETL, BSI, TUV -- whichever lab did the safety cert on it. Note that CE is not a testing lab.