I'd been using high-quality 18AWG 4-conductor in-wall speaker wire to get to my LED strips: +5v, GND, Data (from Teensy) and Data Ground (from end of strip back to Teensy)
The strips are broken into sets of 4 41-LED sub-sections, and each of these sets of four gets a dedicated run back to the PSU and teensy, looking something like this:
(mspaint was all I had, sorry! I'm up for newbie drawing program suggestions)
The only problem is that with 8 of these 41x4 (164 total) sections connected, I get occasional flickering. The cable lenghts range from 6ft to 15ft, and any 7 of them connected is just fine. Plugging in the 8th just pushes it over the edge for some reason. The only suggestion I've found from various threads here that I haven't yet tried, is using coaxial cable for the data instead of the twisted in-wall speaker wire I'm using now. It occurs to me that RG59 Siamese cable would be perfect for this application, with two 18AWG conductors for power and the coax for data+ground all in a single run.
So - is there any reason NOT to use this stuff?
Example of dirt-cheap RG59 (500 feet for <$70 shipped)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002EQ3CQW/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2GZIPA497C3F9
The strips are broken into sets of 4 41-LED sub-sections, and each of these sets of four gets a dedicated run back to the PSU and teensy, looking something like this:
(mspaint was all I had, sorry! I'm up for newbie drawing program suggestions)
The only problem is that with 8 of these 41x4 (164 total) sections connected, I get occasional flickering. The cable lenghts range from 6ft to 15ft, and any 7 of them connected is just fine. Plugging in the 8th just pushes it over the edge for some reason. The only suggestion I've found from various threads here that I haven't yet tried, is using coaxial cable for the data instead of the twisted in-wall speaker wire I'm using now. It occurs to me that RG59 Siamese cable would be perfect for this application, with two 18AWG conductors for power and the coax for data+ground all in a single run.
So - is there any reason NOT to use this stuff?
Example of dirt-cheap RG59 (500 feet for <$70 shipped)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002EQ3CQW/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2GZIPA497C3F9
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