A little spring cleaning and updating is all. Should be up tomorrow. Lots of new products to add, new tech and new lamps. Stay tuned.
So I put together the frame of one of the racks but not really sure what to do with the wiring/ wago connectors. Not sure what to do with the wires and how to connect them to the driver. One colour goes in the + and one in the -?
The step I’m on atm is :
Use the female DC power connector and black PG9 cable gland to mount the
power connector through the power porthole in one of the Rack rails (it’s the large
hole in the vertical side). Loosen the gland nuts, slip the connector wire through
the gland, leaving about 2 inches of the bare ends protruding through the gland.
Insert the gland and wire leads through the power porthole, and tighten the
mounting nut back onto the gland to thumb tight.
Not sure what a gland is or what I’m supposed to be doing or orienting the red and black wire/ do I cut it off the spool in smaller pieces?
This is where I’m at right now not sure if I put that gland or cord in the right spot or orientation. Once I get one built I should be able to do the other 3 just want to make sure I do the first one properly. 2 lights are sharing a driver each.
Edit: do I just cut the spool into small pieces and strip a bit off both ends and connect from one strip to the next? @Albannach @Esrgood4u who else knows how to build lights here?
You need to wire in parallel like so -
NOT in a series like this -
Doing this gives even load on each strip but also if one strip fails the remaining will continue to work. Hope this helps
Unfortunately these circuit diagrams look like an alien language to me. I got one with the instructions but don’t really understand. I’m the type of person that can read something 1000x and not get it and as soon as I do it once usually I will be good to go after that.
The circuits look like its all one wire. I don’t know if or how to cut them, if they are stripped on both ends, what to do with the wago connectors etc. Total noob.
Hang fire I’ll try get a picture of mine
Cut some 2 core cable into 6 inch strips
Brown/red goes to + and blue/black goes to negative.
Run a length of cable down the centre of the build, clip cable where each strip meets and bare wires. Soldier each section red to red and black to black. Make sure you isolate each connection separately with electrician tape or shrink tube. Red should never touch the black or bang goes the lights and the driver.
Like this -
Hey @baudelaire, you may want to chime in here.
The new solstrips that have the +/- on opposite ends dont need the wiring loom. You just connect each strip to the next. B can probably provide a diagram and some photos. Was super easy to wire for me and didnt require looms
Mine are the old type where -and + are next to each other but I’m sure the parallel rule is still the same??
I posted a pdf a few posts back there’s a diagram plus my instructions in it. I wish I could understand that kind of stuff but I’m new to circuits in general and I definitely didn’t pay attention in school so I’m gonna have to have my hand held at first haha.
@Esrgood4u Has been nice enough to start to help me out but I am dense as fuck so.
I think the big rack I built you can see how easy it is to wire. I’ll look thru my pics and see if I have anything helpful for you. Will be a bit tho…
He’ll kick himself when he sees it all put together
Looks like there’s a bunch of short pieces of wire that were cut connecting the strips together. Red+ and black -. If that’s the case that makes things easier. So how do those red and black wires connect back to the power cord thing with the pg9 or whatever. Only thing that I can’t really see in the pic is which order of the 2 holes do they go in? Start at the first one and into the next first ? or first to second?
Edit: is there a way to remove the wires from the strips? I don’t want to pull to hard but I made one too long I would like to shorten it and not strip quite as much off.
You just link all the positives and negatives together. Start at one end of the rack, link the first strip to the second, second to third etc using short wire links with the ends bared approx 1/3 of an inch. Push the bare end into the molex connector making sure it grips the wire tightly. The last (or first) strip in the rack gets connected to your driver using the remaining apparently spare molex connector. The positive row to the red core of that lead with the plug on the end. The negative to the black core. Same deal, push the bare end into the connector. Make sure you are happy all the wires are the correct lengths and double check everything before you connect them. Connect your drivers 24v DC output to your rack and plug the drivers mains supply cable into the wall socket.
I tell everyone to use ratchet hangers to hang racks, they are the dogs bollocks
Don’t look directly at lit strips btw or you will damage your eyes,
If you look at the top of the molex terminal it has a small plastic tab with a wee slot in it. Use a small electrical screwdriver or similar and push that tab down while pulling the wire. It should just pull straight out when the terminal releases it.
Tried doing the negative side hope i didnt mess it up. About to start the red side same thing. Still not sure how all this connects to the powrr cord / wago in the end but at least some progress.
uncrossed the ones that were crossed.Did the red side now unsure how to attach the power cord hope i have the black and red setup correctly
So you just wire in the red and black wires from the rack onto the right wires coming out of the output side of the driver.
Where the wires from the rack and the driver come together use a wago connector. If youre using one of the cords sol strip sells for the driver, the end attached to your rack amd the cord would get a wago, similarly w the female piece of the cord coming out of the driver- connect them w a wago
Still confused lol. Few more pics.
I don’t know what cord or wire to use to attach to the red and black part of power cord. Also don’t know what the third cord with the 3 wirea coming out of the driver is either. Theres only 2 spare holes in strips on each side left.
are these empty spaces for something?The empty spaces is where you would put red and black wires connecting to the ones you have installed through the gland, just put a wire in then route it to the one coming from the gland, cut at the right length and connect using the wago connectors. Both reds in one wago connector and both blacks in the other.