New to the forum so thanks for any help in advance!

I am a relative novice when it comes to LED lighting, never having really set up my own unpowered LED strips. I am doing a project in my bedroom where I plan to install an artistic design that incorporates 5 COB LED strips which I recently purchased. On wall #1 I have a light switch which controls an outlet on wall #2. My goal is to replace the rocker switch with an on/off dimmer (something like a Lutron Diva though Im open to others if necessary). I then want to power all 5 of the 5 meter LED strips installed on wall #2 from the dimmer so that I can switch them on and dim them all to the same level simultaneously. I dont necessarily need to plug them in, Im confident in my ability to wire them directly to the junction box.

I have done a fair amount of research and have found more than a few pieces of highly conflicting information about the materials required and how to wire them. Hoping someone can clarify exactly which items I need and how to set them up correctly in a manner that is relatively safe (remember Ill be sleeping in this room so heat and noise must be kept to a minimum for safety and comfort reasons). I do not know if I need drivers, what type, or how many. I also dont know what dimmable power supplies to use or how many. Lastly I dont know whether I need a specific type of dimmer. I have also read about constant current vs constant voltage power supplies/drivers, low voltage DC, magnitude dimmable power supplies, LED boost drivers, 0-10v dimmers, PWM vs TRIAC dimming, and a host of other electrical products which have only served to further my confusion. Hoping someone can provide suggestions.

The details of my LED strips are as follows...
5x COB LED strip lights: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KG1LKZ4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
1. Size: 5 Meter/ 16.4ft
2. Power: 9W/ Meter (ie 45W per strip)
3. Emitting Color: 2700K Warm White
4. Operating Temperature: -25 ~ +60 °C
5. Voltage: DC 24V

Here is an overly simplified diagram of my intended setup...

 

Each of those strips is the equivalent of 3 100W incandescent bulbs, so 15 100W bulbs in total. That’s going to be one bright bedroom.

As to your question, the dimming will have to be done at the 24V level. I don’t think your wiring of a line voltage switch will do you much good.

These strips are driven by a 24V constant voltage supply, and can be dimmed by PWM.

Look for a dimmable 24V constant voltage supply.

 

The light switch on the wall will be able to provide OFF/ON control without much complication. Beyond that level of control it gets more complicated.
Triac dimming of dimmable mains voltage powered LED lights is often non-linear at best.
As usual, the amazon listing is totally useless in seeing how to control the lights, unless you buy one of the control devices for each strip.
With 480 LEDs on each strip it is some series-parallel arrangement so that the forward voltage drops of each section are close to 24 volts.
Now for the good news, which is that LED intensity can be varied by changing the supply voltage over a very narrow range. The voltage change between a just visible illumination to full intensity may be as much as 100 millivolts, a whole tenth of a volt change. For high power LEDs it may be a bit greater, even. What varies a lot is the current, as the diodes go farther into conduction.
The stated input power for the strips is 45 watts, so at 24 volts that is a bit less than two amps.
Considering that every millivolt of change will produce a noticeable change in brightness, and considering the variable voltage drops in low voltage wiring at that current level, I suggest having the five strips in series, and using a single variable voltage supply, unless you want to be able to adjust the brightness of each strip independently, which might be the case.

At this point you can also consider a PWM driver, since switching 2 amps at a few kilohertz is fairly simple to do.
Adjusting a regulated DC voltage over a span of a very few volts is also also not terribly complex, with a current of only two amps.
SO there are the two main options available without spending huge amounts of money. Others will certainly have additional suggestions.

 

Probably worth mentioning that since this is a bedroom it is unlikely that I will ever run this setup at full power. It will probably never be on consistently above 50% brightness. And no, I dont need to dim them independently, in fact quite the opposite, Id like to be able to dim them all to the same level in unison.

The reason I bought such high density light strips is that I plan to aim the LEDs at the wall so that the lighting is indirect, and in order to avoid hot spots caused by widely spaced LEDs I decided to go with the most densely packed LEDs I could find to create a consistent light pattern. Assuming this is the case I dont think small amounts of voltage drop are a huge issue but the manufacturer also recommended not wiring more than 2 of the 5 meter strips in a single run so Im not sure if they can handle wiring all 5 in series. However if I do wire them in parallel I have some 12g wire I was planning on using which to my understanding is complete overkill and wouldnt result in much loss of power over the short distances that I plan to run the wire.

If I were to run them in parallel as per manufacturer instruction my understanding is that I would need at minimum a power supply capable of 270w (45w*5 = 225w + 20% buffer = 270w). And I would like to dim them all simultaneously.

So my options are either...
1. Dim them by wiring a PWM dimmer between a 24v/360w power supply such as this one and the LED strips, and control the lights with a standard on/off wall switch
2. Dim them using a wall mounted TRIAC dimmer switch followed by a 24v/320w power supply such as this one followed by the LED strips

Am I somewhat on track and would the power supplies I proposed be sufficient?

 

The power supply would certainly need to be NON-REGULATED so that varying the input would vary the output. And at 12 volts, 250 watts is 20 amps, but that is at full intensity. You will need to assure that the supply will not do much over 12 volts at max input.
And I have not run a rectifier type unregulated supply with a dimmer, no telling how that will work. Let us know, please.

OOPS!!! I was thinking 12 volt strips when I posted the remark here. Cancel that advice. It would be a 24 volt NOT REGULATED supply. By that I mean that the output voltage drops as the input voltage drops. That should allow reducing the brightness with the present dimmer arrangement. A 24 volt series string should have at least 6 LEDs in series and so the change from dim to bright may be a bit over a volt. Much more controllable.

 

I don’t think dimming the input to a power supply is a good idea. If might work poorly with s linear supply, but who knows what happens with a switching supply.

 

In doing some further digging after one of the previous responses I happened upon this page, which for practical purposes is the same LED strips that I bought. The two solutions I proposed in my most recent message came from options listed on that page, adjusted for the fact that Ill be running 5x 45W strips in parallel. Im obviously not highly confident that I understood the recommendations from the page but it seems to be that they are suggesting using either of the two setups I mentioned.

 

I specifically stated NON regulated, possibly not in enough detail. Adjusting the voltage will vary the brightness, but as I mentioned, the range between dim and full bright is very narrow.
My experiment with some white bright LEDs was that at 3.50 volts per LED they started to glow, and at 3.78 volts per LED they drew the rated 200mA and were painfully bright to look at. So there is about 280 millivolts differencecovering the whole brightness range.

 

Please don’t mistake my ignorance in this subject area for having ignored your advice. I really don’t even know what non-regulated even means, or if the supplies I posted fall into the regulated or not regulated category. Everything I’ve mentioned before is derived from online research and different articles use lots of different terminology with conflicting instructions so its hard to keep track.

I’m still not clear on what I should be doing. Do you have any suggestions of exactly which items you would buy if you were doing this project? And how you would set them up assuming you were wiring them in parallel and wanted to be able to dim them?

 

You'll be much happier soldering 18 to 20 gauge wire to the copper pads on the COB strip. Attempting to solder 12-gauge wire to those little pads will look bad and the wire will be heavy and much crack the pad off of the flex PCB. Also, any torsion from twisted wire is quite strong with heavy 12-gauge wire. I suggest buying some alternative wire.

Also, you can mount these in what "looks like" series but just run 18-gauge wire from the mid-point Of one strip to the mid point of the next.

Look for an 18 to 24v PWM controller on eBay or Amazon and use that as a dimmer. Buy a big power supply for 18v and using the PWM will allow a nice smooth dim.

 

One thing to consider is maintenance. Although the LEDs are nominally quite long lived, they do fail. What will you do when this happens?

My suggestion is to anticipate it in two ways. First buy one or two extra LED strips of the same type so you don’t have to search or adapt something else. This is usually economically feasible and will save you a lot of trouble.

Second, if you can avoid using self-adhesive mounting, do! Instead get some extruded aluminum channel designed for the purpose or the silicone diffuser extrusions which have a variety of profiles. Depending on what you are doing the latter may be an advantage since they very effectively diffuse the light for a more even output.

A related thing, keep notes! Particularly notes on why you did something you didn’t expect to have to do, or workarounds to avoid problems encountered and include as-built physical diagrams and schematics. You will thank yourself when you return in months or years to work on the project again.

I also include sources for the parts and order numbers for the purchases so I can refer back to the same vendor and part number.

 

A regulated power supply keeps the output voltage close to constant as either the load varies or the mains voltage varies. For a non-regulated power supply the output voltage varies with the amount of current drawn, and also varies as the mains supply voltage changes. So if you desire to vary the brightness of the LED strips you will need to vary the voltage supplied to them a bit. Adjusting the voltage will certainly change the current they draw, and thus change the intensity. This is not the most perfect way of setting the level, but it is certainly the very simplest method. It is also the least likely to produce any sort of interference to other systems in the area.

The "unregulated power supply" will consist of a transformer, a rectifier array of diodes, and a filter capacitor, and no other electronics. It WILL NOT be a switching power supply.
The intention of the suggestion is that as the wall installed dimmer is adjusted the output of the supply will be reduced, dimming the LED strip lights. Very simple indeed.
You will need to add a series resistor if the supply voltage is above 24 volts. Just one resistor and the math is simple.

 

I don’t think I saw mentioned the idea of a 0-10V dimming constant current LED driver. They are cheap, readily available, and standardized. The Lutron Diva dimmer you chose is avaialble in a 0-10V version, so that’s not a problem.

It’s what I would do.

 

The strips are constant voltage with resistors built in. I suggested a dimmable 24V supply in post #2.

@MrSalts, why are you recommending an 18V supply when the strips are 24V?