An Idiot's guide, simple LED garage lighting install

The best LED garage lights for simple folk! These Barrina LED T5 lights are super bright at 6500 k and economical at only 20watts. Took about an hour for me to install in my garage and that's ...

As the wire size amp rating chart at Cerrowire states, under normal household temperature conditions, the maximum current rating for a 14-gauge wire is 15 amps, while that for a 12-gauge wire is 20 amps. It's OK to wire a 15-amp light circuit with a 14-gauge wire to save a bit of money and make the wiring job a bit easier.

Selecting Proper Gauge. It’s important to select the right gauge of wire for your system. Bigger wire is nearly always better (the main problem with big wire is its flexibility and difficulty of termination) but most LED grow lights don’t draw a whole lot of current and will not require large wires.

Light fixture wiring circuits are not as simple as wiring found in household devices, so finding the right wiring size for them can be a bit more tedious. For example, a microwave that only uses one dedicated wire typically has a rated capacity of 20 amps; following the American Gauge Wire system as a guide, you would find that 20 amps require a size 12 wire.

Wire size is dictated by circuit size. A 20 amp circuit requires a minimum of 12 gauge wire and a 15 amp circuit a minimum of 14 gauge wire. For a workshop, I would suggest running 20 amp circuits because some power tools draw close to 15 amps. I would also strongly suggest that the lighting circuit be different than any receptacles.

The total current capacity of the 22-gauge wire is in excess of 2 amps and the capacity of the 20-gauge wire is in excess of 3 amps. This corresponds to a total of 100 or 300 lights respectively. Should lights in these quantities be used, we recommend using a larger gauge feed wire or multiple feeds from the power source.

When powering LED strips, voltage drop is commonly explained by insufficient copper quality or thickness in an LED strip's PCB substrate. But, in many cases, it can also be caused by the wires that lead up to or connect between LED strip segments. This is why it is very important to be aware of the wire gauge (thickness) used in the wiring for LED strips.

The NEC limit for 14-gauge wire is 20 amps, which means you should never use 14-gauge wire in your 240-volt circuits, only your 120-volt circuits, or the amperage will exceed the wire's capacity. Using the basic electrical formula "Watts = Volts x Amps," the wire presents the equation Watts = 120 x 20 with a result of Watts = 2,400.

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are efficient, power-saving lights that last years. Most of the electricity an LED light consumes is converted into light, unlike regular light bulbs, where a lot of energy is lost as heat. It's important that you use the correct wire size for your LED lights, as a wire that's too ...

Just not a fan of the connection points, so for replacing my other 2 lights in the garage I might look for a more traditional fitting (live, neutral, loop etc.) on a LED batten. A year or two ago I also purchased LAP plugs and they were **** tbh - I have had to replace 4 or 5 out the 20 as the plug stops going into the socket !!!