Wiring LEDs really neatly?

[78Triumph 2610]

Anyone have any photos of some really neat LED light installations/  By neat I mean really tidy and cleanly installed.  I hate having wires running all over the place so any advice or tips would also be appreciated.  Thanks!

[Nicadraus 6201]

Use shrink tube to wrap them together. That way, they will be organized instead of putting a couple of cable ties every few centimeters. 

[Nobbi1977 1793]

The spiraly tube stuff works well. You can add and remove wires later if you need and it expands the the amount you put in it

[TWINSET 1793]

It's hard to get it real tidy without resorting to making your own cables up.

Trouble is, the LED controller really needs to be attached to the shell but powered from the ESC on the chassis

Try looking at some drift builds, they usually use a fair few lights so you might get some routing isnpiration there.
I'm just finishing off the wiring on my GMade truck, and it started well, now it's a nest!
I've made a few joins in cables so the LED controller isn't plugged directly into the ESC, but into an extension cable running out of the ESC

 

Here's a drift-build pic I found via google from http://www.pursuitechs.com/drift-car-build/

[Mad Ax 9329]

I'd echo all of the above, depending on the installation and the area.

If you can make up your own wiring, you can make it just the length in needs to be.  That cuts down on loads of cable wings that you need to hide.  If you can't do that, bind them up in the middle of the shell somewhere where there's more space and secure them with a cable tie.

Heatshrink is good for keeping small runs of cable together and keeping them in a the same curve / straight line they're in when you apply heat.  i.e. curve length of heatshrink around a corner then heat it, it should maintain that shape.

Spiral wrap is great because you can take it off later if you need to.  It can be fiddly to apply and sometimes causes the cables within it to twist as you apply, this isn't a problem unless you have already secured your wires at both ends - best applied with the ends unplugged.

I use a mix of stick-on cable clips and silage tape to secure the wires to the body.  Stick-on clips can sometimes be utterly pointless as they just come off.  Silage tape is like black duct tape but wider and IME doesn't leave a sticky residue if you take it off.

Secure the light unit to the body as Twinset suggests, then have an extended flylead with a plug in the middle to attach it to the power, otherwise it's a pain to get the shell on and off.  Make sure the flylead doesn't sit anywhere where it will get caught in gears or wheels.

For touring shells I usually cut a piece of styrene sheet to just beneath the window line, so you can't see the chassis and wiring through the windows.  Later you can add interior details onto it.

[78Triumph 2610]

Ah yes, drift car builds should have plenty of photos and wiring ideas! Good call on that one!  I can solder, so that's not an issue, I just want really neatly run wiring under the body, as stealth as possible.  Has anyone ever seen the model railroad and slot car guys use copper or aluminum self adhesive tape as a replacement for wires?  I don't know how that would work in the RC world but that would make a pretty easy way to run power from the front to the back of the shell.   Thoughts?

[Theibault 1535]

The best advice I can give is to use some hockey tape to make it look as clean as possible. Here's my TT-02 Evo X body running 3 LEDs per front bucket and 4 per rear for a total of 12. I think I did a pretty clean install and the tape hides the wires from the outside looking in.

[ruebiracer 1046]

Quote

I like to separate the light unit from the body. We did it on some 24h race cars (TT01 mainly). Helps keeping COG low, and avoid separating the unit from the body in crashes.  As a connector, I use a Multiplex green connector with 6 Pins. It´s usually sufficient, as you can bundle + or - to one pin, depends on the light unit used. + or minus usually bridged in the LED slots anyway. So you also can have 2 different bodies and only one light unit.  I think, I have some photos from my wiring in my showroom, check my Scorcher, the silver M06 or my Monster beetle, if you´re interested...

 

[Yonez 180]

I bought some ribbon cable to attempt really neat wiring, but haven’t gotten around to doing it

[78Triumph 2610]

15 hours ago, Yonez said:

I bought some ribbon cable to attempt really neat wiring, but haven’t gotten around to doing it

I had thought of that too.  I have a length of ribbon cable from a PC I was considering trying out.

[JNSD1 288]

There's some fantastic mesh style cabe wrap that is absolutely perfect for it IMO.  My Bruiser below:

Details here:

 

[SuperChamp82 743]

There’s honestly no easy answer to this. 

Each kit has hot / electronic parts in different places - so the first issue is routing shell lighting wire safely / securely.

Which means there are no generic wiring looms or one size fits all anchoring solutions.

Once you’ve worked out what wiring has to avoid / accommodate, you’ll know what anchor points / wrap make sense - noting heat shrink or insulating web are my go to barriers depending on  environment.

Anchoring either is then a similar choice of ambient heat or electronic interference - noting adhesive metal clips work well when it’s warm + similar plastic are better when cool.

[WillyChang 1814]

On 18 November 2018 at 10:33 PM, 78Triumph said:

I had thought of that too.  I have a length of ribbon cable from a PC I was considering trying out.

Same here, good minds!  Got lots of IDE cables etc, thought it'll be neat.

Trouble is, IDE ribbons are made to be clamped down by the self-piercing IDE plug... the PVC insulation is thin & not particularly heat resistant  overheat 1 wire & it could melt across the other neighbouring conductors.

Plus it's also harder to heatshrink.

 

For custom lighting looms... IMHO it's easier (I'm lazy) to start with commercial lighting kit - it's cheaper than buying loose LEDs downunder. Some brands come with inline micro resistor already installed; others rely on a power box like TLU or DarkDrifter etc

Trim the excess wire at the plug end, easier than other end.

Plan ahead... often you can piggyback a LED onto another nearby LED - don't need to run 2pr of wires back to powerbox.

LEDs can be joined in parallel or series... easier when there's no resistor inline... and when you get the current right, brightness isn't affected. LEDs don't really care about the voltage, 3-12V mightn't shine any difference as long as current is same.

If you want every LED to be able to be individually controlled then yeah you'll need wire for each going back to control box. But usually you can make them all share a common ground, so a 4-LED bar needs only 5 wires not 8.

 

 

[78Triumph 2610]

 

13 hours ago, WillyChang said:

Same here, good minds!  Got lots of IDE cables etc, thought it'll be neat.

Trouble is, IDE ribbons are made to be clamped down by the self-piercing IDE plug... the PVC insulation is thin & not particularly heat resistant  overheat 1 wire & it could melt across the other neighbouring conductors.

Plus it's also harder to heatshrink.

 

For custom lighting looms... IMHO it's easier (I'm lazy) to start with commercial lighting kit - it's cheaper than buying loose LEDs downunder. Some brands come with inline micro resistor already installed; others rely on a power box like TLU or DarkDrifter etc

Trim the excess wire at the plug end, easier than other end.

Plan ahead... often you can piggyback a LED onto another nearby LED - don't need to run 2pr of wires back to powerbox.

LEDs can be joined in parallel or series... easier when there's no resistor inline... and when you get the current right, brightness isn't affected. LEDs don't really care about the voltage, 3-12V mightn't shine any difference as long as current is same.

If you want every LED to be able to be individually controlled then yeah you'll need wire for each going back to control box. But usually you can make them all share a common ground, so a 4-LED bar needs only 5 wires not 8.

 

 

Good stuff WillyChang!  I have a bundle of LEDs with resistors already inline with them so I don't have a control box.  I like the idea of running them in series to limit the amount of wires running all over the place.  I'm still wondering if aluminum or copper tape would work in lieu of actual wires.  Any thoughts?

[WillyChang 1814]

Have played with aluminium foil tape (used for house alarm on glass pane) but it didn't conduct well & hard to connect to. (Maybe it's made to have a certain known resistance...? Hmm)

Nowadays you've also got conductive paint (either in paint marker or brush bottle) for fixing PCB tracks or also drawing circuits onto fabric. Haven't tried either type. 

[waterbok 1282]

I like my hotglue and aluminium tape to keep it kind of neat.

Heatshrink

My Xmass tree

Thats all...