Connecting many wires together

[ryebred]

I am slowly assembling my mega pixel tree and have 6 out of 24 pixel strings completed so far. Each string receives its own power injection from my two 5volt 60 amp power supplies. There is one hot and one nuetral line coming out of the power supply and so far I have just been using wire nuts to join those with all of the pixel string wires. The wires are stranded and as I am taking the wire nut off, adding a new line, and putting it back on, the wires are getting all tangled and knotted. I wanted to find a neater way to join a bunch of wires together and while in Home Depot the other day, I came across terminal blocks. These seemed like a good idea at first until, upon closer examination, I realized that it seperated the wires into distinct circuits instead of connecting them all together.

 

Does anyone have a recomendation on how to connect 9+ stranded wires together in a neat fashion? One that I can easily add to to/remove from when I need to take down and set up the tree?

[Max-Paul]

Use say 3 wire nuts per power supply wire.  What you are going to want to do is have a wire come from the power supply and another wire going to the next wire nut. Add to these two wires three of the pixel strip wires. Install the wire nut. Now you should have a wire going no where, add another wire and three of the pixels wire. Once more you have a wire going no where, add the last 3 pixel strip wires and put a wire nut on this junction of wires. Now do this again for the other wire from the power supply. This is how house are wired if they have several can lights in the ceiling.

 

Just for a bit of knowledge. Those terminal strips could be used. What you do is you either buy or make your own shorting bars. You install these between several screws on one side and under one of the screws install your power supply wire. Then on the other side you put the wires going out to the pixel strips. Usually you can fit two crimp on terminals under one screw, one up and one down. Wish I had something like this in a picture or MS paint to make my point.

[k6ccc]

Assuming that it is in a protected location (like inside an electrical box), go over to your local home improvement store and get a couple of ground bar kits.  Use one for your plus 5 volts and another for the ground.  Obviously they need to be insulated from each other so don't bolt both to a metal box!

They are available in various sizes.  Here are a few examples from Home Depot:

 

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Eaton-5-Terminal-Ground-Bar-Kit-GBK5CS/100133761#.UjEuwT_QA8M

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-by-Schneider-Electric-7-Terminal-Ground-Bar-Kit-PK7GTACP/202353316#.UjEuvj_QA8M

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-by-Schneider-Electric-15-Terminal-Ground-Bar-Kit-PK15GTACP/202353315#.UjEuxj_QA8M

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-by-Schneider-Electric-23-Terminal-Load-Center-Ground-Bar-Kit-PK23GTACP/100129430#.UjEuzD_QA8M

[Max-Paul]

Assuming that it is in a protected location (like inside an electrical box), go over to your local home improvement store and get a couple of ground bar kits.  Use one for your plus 5 volts and another for the ground.  Obviously they need to be insulated from each other so don't bolt both to a metal box!

They are available in various sizes.  Here are a few examples from Home Depot:

 

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Eaton-5-Terminal-Ground-Bar-Kit-GBK5CS/100133761#.UjEuwT_QA8M

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-by-Schneider-Electric-7-Terminal-Ground-Bar-Kit-PK7GTACP/202353316#.UjEuvj_QA8M

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-by-Schneider-Electric-15-Terminal-Ground-Bar-Kit-PK15GTACP/202353315#.UjEuxj_QA8M

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-by-Schneider-Electric-23-Terminal-Load-Center-Ground-Bar-Kit-PK23GTACP/100129430#.UjEuzD_QA8M

Great idea Jim. Just got to make sure that the positive buss bar does not short out to the metal box as you mentioned.

[Wayne K]

 I came across terminal blocks. These seemed like a good idea at first until, upon closer examination, I realized that it seperated the wires into distinct circuits instead of connecting them all together

 

I like your terminal strip idea as it would be very simple to remove the wires if you crimp an end on them. They make terminal block jumpers, a quick search showed this one from mouser : http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Molex/38002-1288/?qs=TUUHKi7uQZnE8u2pfw5jDQ%3D%3D&gclid=CJ_LjPO7zbkCFYhAMgodUz4AKA

Also I found a crude way to make your own jumper by soldering a jumper onto the strip : http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/qq304/TanglewoodAltoona/Electrical/TerminalBlockJumpers2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cs.trains.com/thread/168578.aspx&h=768&w=1024&sz=105&tbnid=EaS5wcVwKgJGFM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=120&zoom=1&usg=__jwAmNwLPxDb1Ld4trSj5MOdGbNk=&docid=WSudk8axyN7L1M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Ea81UpepN8H22gWkvoGoDw&ved=0CHkQ9QEwBA&dur=46

 

I am not sure this will help, but this was my first thought after I read your post 

 

Wayne

[ryebred]

I ended up trying Jim's ground block idea. I am mounting everything in a waterproof plastic electrical box and the ground blocks screw in easily to this. I hooked up all the connections and tested out 12 strings of 50 count pixel strings on my 18 foot tall tree and it works great.