Re: 18g wire good enough?

[Ilias Glavinas <eg1@ee.wustl.edu>]

On Wed, 19 Mar 1997, ChuckKuecker wrote:

> I've always wired things like that to the dimmer, too, looks factory! But I 
> have to wonder how many new lights one can hang on the dimmer before it smokes.
> 
> Anybody?

Well, it really depends on what the dimmer is. If it is a simple 
potentiometer (ie, variable resistor), then there is no problem because 
it simply gets the 12V from the battery and feeds it to the lights. And 
you can have many-many tiny bulbs, since decent car batteries can provide 
adequate current to have enough power to all the 12V bulbs (remember the 
P=VI thingie from high school physics). Problems might arise if the 
dimmer is not a simple potentiometer but some other structure (hardly 
doubt it) that cannot feed the full current available from the battery to 
the bulbs. In that case if one wires up 5 more gauges besides the stock 
oil temp gauge (a wet dream of many of us in the list :-)) the six light 
bulbs in the gauges will be dimmer than normal. However, after I wired up 
my 2 additional gauges I didn't see any drop in brightness, so I think 
everything is ok. 


Ilias (really struggling to find a decent mounting spot for that second 
3-gauge panel...)
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