Solar question-help needed

[Bob Rowlands]

Thanks for the tips Stea.

[Jafo]

Thanks, I just ordered one. Did you modify the plug I assume?

[Stea]

I needed to run the power cord about 15 feet so I purchased 15 feet of 18 ga 2 wire and spliced the step down in then i cut the original power cord and spliced the end in to my new power cord. Cant really use taps or connectors because the wire is so small so I used shrink tube to secure the connections. Ugly but it works.

[Jafo]

Originally Posted by Stea

This is the one I used

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rldwidecreatio

Have you noticed if your converter gets hot?

[Stea]

doesnt get hot at all

[hierony]

The more current you draw, the hotter the converter will get--basically all the excess power gets converted to heat. Ie, (12 V-5 V)* amps = watts

heating

. Milliamp draws aren't going to heat things up much (7 V * .250 A = 1.75 watts heat).

As for wire, you can get some pretty good speaker wire for much cheaper than much of anything else. Like $22 for 250 ft of 16 ga (ebay), or even 12 ga. It's pretty flexible, has ground marked on one side, and will take most of the light and some of the moderate currents.