Hey folks,

Trying to understand the exact power requirements necessary for the LEDs circuits I'm putting together. My LED's are 3-4 Watts/foot and I am wanting to use one of the boards in the link below. It looks like the boards claim to have n-Channel 8W 12V FET Drivers. It looks like you then plug in N number of LED lights to the various channels and control them together or individual...I'm trying to determine if the max for the entire output is 8W or if it's 8W/channel or what?

Ultimately, I am putting in under cabinet lighting and need about 12 feet (~45W) of power (probably less but this is a good start). I want to control all the LED strips in the same fashion, so coding-wise I could just use one channel with all the LEDs wired together in serial...question is though...does that blow out the power?

If that is too much power, any recommendations on how to step up to the necessary power supply?
Thanks in advance!

https://www.controleverything.com/products?f[0]=field_assigned_categories:11678

 

Hi there, you don't say what type of leds they are, i.e. RGB, RGBW, warm white etc. Also what type of control do you want over them, again depending on the type of leds you are using.

One rule of thumb is to over spec any power supply. I always work on 60% ish of the power supply rating. It prolongs the life. I have worked with many commercial led applications in the past as well as celebrity installs.

Please give some more information of what you have, what control and how you want to control it.

 

Thanks for the reply Nick! Yeah, I did leave those details out because I can certainly control anything I want with my IoT boards. I use Particle Photon and I have very low level control and with this board I can set the power, color and frequencies so I feel like I have a good grasp on the control...my main question is regarding the power...

I totally agree with the 60-80% power ratings but I am having trouble understanding what the power ratings are with this board. Is it 8W per channel or can I string 40W of LEDs in serial across a single channel?

Just for reference, here are the lights I'm looking at getting.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01A79H03S/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&smid=AJ0QRPX8ADNI1&th=1

 

In most instances controllers give a total amps per channel but this usually refers to rgb controllers. So a 10 amp controller will have 3.3 amps per colour.

For the controller you are looking at I would think that would be 8 watts per channel as this is 0.7 amps per channel based on 12vbc. If it was 8 watts total then on some of the boards it would be less the 0.1 amps per channel.

8 watts is only enough to control less than 3 feet of led. Most controllers I am used to dealing with are very cheap to purchase and can easily control 5 meter lengths and others that control hundreds of meters.

I don't think you will be able to connect 40 feet to one channel as each channel will have an 8w limit rather than 8 x the number of channels. I understand you want to use you photon to control this but there are far cheaper methods that will run 40 feet in one length.

 

What do you use? I only want to control < 12 feet which should take about 40-45 watt requirements. I'm all ears for other ideas for dimmers I can control frequency and duty cycle.

Thoughts ideas?

Thanks again for your input

 

There are lots of cheap remote control devices that offer dimming, strobing etc. This is a very cheap option idea. Not sure if this is what you are looking for. We have used many different types of dimming and strobing options over the years from DMV controllers to dimmable power supplies, these are more expensive and tend to be used in commercial applications. Home use tends to be like the ones below. If this is not what you are looking for then let me know and I will think again.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/JnDeeTM-Wi...34933&sr=8-2&keywords=led+strip+dimmer+switch

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Indoor-L...35125&sr=8-6&keywords=led+strip+dimmer+switch

Wall mounted light switches

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Indoor-L...5232&sr=8-17&keywords=led+strip+dimmer+switch

 

I really want to be able to wire it up to an IoT board and these look like good end user applications but I need something that will let me send signals for what I'm wanting to do.

 

I have never used photon or a arduino systems before but I am sure you could use them to control the cheap led power supplies rather than the leds directly. This was one channel of the board would control one power supply. I did a quick search and found this, yes it is using RGB leds but the principle is the same for white leds.

http://www.instructables.com/id/LED-Strip-Controller-w-LED-Amp-Arduino/

It is difficult not having the equipment to play with. There are also power supplies that have externally controlled dimming, these will have 0-10v input cable. I am assuming this could connect directly to your unit so you can control the dimming directly.

 

Now we're talking!! Thanks! I'll report back what I find. I'll also post the project once I'm done and put a link here for you and anyone else!