How to I find the resistance in a length of hook-up wire?

What length of hook-up wire (electronic circuit board) is equivalent to a 470 Ohm resistor? I want to place LEDs at some distance (max 6 feet/1.8 metres) from the TTL outputs that drive them, and normally one would include a 470 Ohm resistor per LED. But if the connecting wires (probably the individual cores in flat ribbon cable, like IDE drive cable) provide enough resistance, there may be no need for the resistors.

MM

Reply to
MM
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You would need far, far more than your maximum of 6 ft of ribbon cable core.

You can look up copper wire resistance tables.

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eg 2 metres of the finest wire here, 40 gauge, would only have a resistance of six ohms or so.

So, for driving LEDs, you can ignore the resistance of tracks and cables.

Reply to
Palindr☻me

You need roughly** 5247.426 meters of # 24.

** roughly = Depends on whose wire table you use. The table at
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27.3 ohms per 1000 feet of #24

Ed

Reply to
ehsjr

Temperature is of major importance when determining DC resistance. For 100 per cent IACS copper dc resistance can be found with the following equation: Rdc=( (Pc/CMA)*((tah+T)/(tah.+20)) )*(length in feet)

Where Pc is the circular mil ohm resistance in ohms at 20 degrees C. tah is the inferred temperature of zero resistance. T is the temperature in degrees C at which we wish to find the DC resistance CMA is circular mil area (diameter of conductor in thousandths of an inch squared) Example: For the resistance of a copper conductor at 75 degrees C. with a CMA of 1620 circular mils (No. 18 AWG) 1000 feet long the resistance would be: Rdc=(10.371 ohms/1620 cma)(234.5 degrees C+75 degrees C)/(234.5 degrees C+20 degrees C))(1000 ft)

Rdc=7.8 ohms per thousand feet This matches the value in Table 8 or Chapter 9 in the NEC. For resistance of other metals used the circular mil ohms resistance per foot at 20 degrees C in place of the value of 10.371 used for copper. Typical vaues for Pc and tah are: copper (100 per cent IACS) is 10.371 ,tah is 234.5 Aluminum (61 per cent IACS) is 17.002, tah is 228.1 Brass (27.3 per cent IACS) (70 cu, 30 Zn) is 38.0 and tah is 912 Lead (7.84 per cent IACS) 132.3 and tah is 236

Reference: Neher McGrath paper The Calculation of the Temperature Rise and Load Capability of Cable Systems published by AIEE (now the IEEE) October 1957

Reply to
Gerald Newton

Others have answered your question. However, depending upon your circuitry, TTL signals can be so fast that they can produce electronic interference for leads that long.

Bill

-- Fermez le Bush

Reply to
Salmon Egg

That's good! Thanks!

MM

Reply to
MM

Ah. Now is this something I need to worry about? The LEDs will be coming on and going off at different times - about four or five on at any one time. Some will stay on longer than others.

How would this interference manifest itself?

MM

Reply to
MM

Place an am radio, tuned to a quiet channel, next to the wires and you will get some audible clicks. If that worries you, use twisted pairs to each LED or pass the wires through a ferrite core.

Not really something to worry too much about, if all that you are doing is switching LEDs on and off. Very much something to worry about, if you are trying to send data at a very high data rate.

Reply to
Palindr☻me

=?UTF-8?B?UGFsaW5kcuKYu21l?= wrote in news:eo3u1q$p0b$ snipped-for-privacy@aioe.org:

Aren't you guys forgetting about "kick back"? if you run a fast spike TTL signal down 6' of wire and then turn off the LED, you'll develope some kick-back, right?

He may need to incorporate a capacitor and high ohm resistor to ground - say a 1Mohm resistor in series with a capacitor (not sure what value).

Just a thought to get a better idea for his circuit.

Thanks

Reply to
Peter

The source impedance is going to be several hundred ohms - and at the end of the line is a (conducting) LED that is going to present a very low impedance to any voltage transients over its knee voltage. You don't get a lot better than that for minimising reflected power. Add a ferrite core to the line and the "spike" isn't going to be fast - not that it would be very fast anyway, because of the source impedance.

Of course if things were different, say a very low impedance source and a very high impedance load, and the shape of the signals really mattered, etc, etc, then a lot more attention to the design would be needed.

Reply to
no

The LEDs will be switched on/off at a rate comparable to MIDI when playing an average piece of music. That is, however many individually struck notes you would get in a bar/measure, that is the equivalent rate for the LEDs.

MM

Reply to
MM

Peter, I'm open to any ideas! Basically, think of a small circuit board with CMOS 4099s or TTL equivalent latches. Each output pin shall drive an LED. I can, of course, choose between different LED types and sizes, but I want to aim for a 3 mm size, as the application needs these to be as compact as possible. There are also, apparently, LEDs now available that incorporate their own resistor. So here we have our latch with each output pin connected to an LED. Pin goes high, LED lights up.

Now extend the distance the LED is mounted from its driver pin by, say, 6 feet max. I could use ordinary hook-up wire from Maplins. Or I could use a strip of flat ribbon cable, separating out the inividual cores at the LED end. Ideally, my long mounting board could have copper tracks on it, but that is not feasible for a homebrew prototype.

Over to you!

Thanks, by the way, for all these useful tips!

MM

Reply to
MM

wire that size is power handling ability, dont include in computation for dropping resistance. below 100 feet wont make any diff.

Reply to
<hapticz

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