Question on Whelen LED Hidden Unit Splicing

[HKMP5]

I have a set of 4 of the new Whelen LED modulesa to put in headlight enclosures etc. Can you splice the wires to make them longer or shorter? I would use the same shielded wire and solder / shrink tube to splice for good connections and waterproofing. I am trying to save buying more cables or an extension.

Thanks in advance for your help...

[CVPI06]

a bit more info would be helpful, are you talking about a LED "Hide-a-way" kit, head lights, etc? (I only ask this because your post is some what vague, even though you say "Whelen moduals to put into the headlights" that could mean a few different things, and since I am pretty sure whelen doesnt make actual bulbs for the headlights I am going to take a guess and assume your talking about a hide-a-way kit or are you talking about the LED bulb/light its self that would be included in a kit and/or purchased seperatly?


Im going to assume your talking about a hide away type set up, if that is the case Whelen should supply you with the lights (regardless if you got LED, strobe, or other type of kit), the power supply and wires (what ever the standered set up is, unless you ordered a different length), if you have just the LED bulbs and power supply (strobe power supply I believe is the correct term) you should be able to go to the Whelen site or what ever site you purchased the item(s) from originally and should be able to order longer wire lengths.



If your talking about some thing different please explain what your talking about and give as much info as possible so others can have a better idea of what you are asking and talking about.

[HKMP5]

Yes I am refering to the Whelen LAW4 model of LED flashers that hide in headlight / tail light enclosures. I bought this kit from an individual with cable lengths I did not order to fit. I know cables are available in all lengths but 2 of my cables are long enough to add to the short ones at no cost except the time to splice them.

I know Whelen will not suggest it as they want to sell cables. I would like to know if anyone has spliced strobe / LED cables successfully?

[FireCpt809]

Without getting into a long winded non answer..


Yes, You can extend the cables. As long as you dont do it bewteen the lighthead and the ballast module " black box". I lengthen the power and ground and sync wires all the time and never had an issue.

[jackhackett]

When dealing with LEDs "strobe power supply" is not the correct term, connecting LEDs to a strobe supply might be interesting for a few seconds, but once the smoke clears the fun is over
Ballast isn't really right either. LED Flasher or LED Driver would be better terms, while Whelen calls the module in line with their Vertex LEDs (I believe the ones being discussed here) a Lamp Driver.

[FireCpt809]

I knew they were called somthing different. I was drawing a blank at the time.

[CVPI06]

I knew they were called somthing different. I was drawing a blank at the time.

Same here, I think the lamp driver/LED driver is a better term

[Pj]

Without looking it up, LAW4 seems like the CVPI HALO product.

[akardam]

A LAW4xxxx kit is what Whelen calls their "Universal LED HAW" product, and is described here:

http://www.whelen.com/details_prod.php? ... rod_id=404

These are different from their Vertex LED products, as described here:

http://www.whelen.com/details_prod.php? ... rod_id=427

By the way, even though Whelen bills the Vertex LED product as a HAW, you can mount them outside a head/park/brake/turn/tail light. In fact we have off-road motor units that utilize them in this fashion... but I digress.

Contrary to standard HAW strobes, there's nothing special / no grounding requirements for the cables that run from the control module to the lightheads themselves. The Whelen ULED HAW's have the LED driver physically built into the arse-end of the lighthead itself, so there's no cable between the lighthead and the LED driver. Contrast this with the Vertex product mentioned above which does indeed have a length of wire between the lighthead and the LED driver.

The connectors the ULED HAW product uses are called Tyco Mini Mate-N-Lok connectors. If you're feeling adventurous, they're available though outlets such as Digikey (as well as the crimpers and insertion/extraction tools) - you can roll your own cables without any splices, just get a length of appropriately sized 6-conductor and go to town.

Alternately, Whelen does offer different length cables, up to 25' (see the first link, above). I suspect that anything more than 25' would lead to excessive voltage loss and degraded performance, but they don't specifically state that anywhere that I can find.

Perhaps you could provide some further insight into your specific install scenario?

[Bat2way]

connecting LEDs to a strobe supply might be interesting for a few seconds, but once the smoke clears the fun is over

Thanks for the laugh Jack. Reminded me of a kid once who was gonna show ME something.............

[HKMP5]

I took a patrol unit to our local installer for an unrelated repair and asked one of the installers the splice question. His reply was that it is done all the time with solder and shrink tube for reliable connections. In most cases it is not for adding length, but to fish the cable through a smaller hole that the plastic molex connector will not fit through. He also said no RF interference or function has been noted when the LED cables are spliced. I am going to try it and see what happens.

Thanks for all of the advise and replies....