Non-SIGNAL LEVEL power on custom circuit boards

[DonRotolo]

LEDs, with a typical current consumption in the tens of milliamps, would be a signal-level power circuit in my opinion. Or to put it another way: What size wire would safely carry the current actually needed? If it's less than 26 AWG, it is signal-level.

Of course, my opinion is worthless at a competition.

[jnicho15]

It's powering a few meters of led strip, so it takes about 0.5 to 1A.

[cgmv123]

R49 says the 500 mA outputs of the VRM are SIGNAL LEVEL wiring.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Max,
Yes, I hate that rule for that confusion.
Yes, we care about the wire gauge for what protection device it is using. If your are connected to the 2 amp output of the VRM, then you must have 22 AWG as the power wiring. If you are running smaller than 2 amp circuit traces, then those traces become the secondary fuse. We know that if the wire feeding your custom circuit were to short, the protection would prevent that wiring from catching fire. If you were to feed a string of LEDs with #36 wire, then we know that the wire shorting would likely produce some short duration fire, flame and smoke but that the VRM and then the breaker or fuse feeding that module would act to protect the wiring feeding the module.