How to power 60W of LED's with a PSU

[cron.7]

Hello Guys,

I'm trying to power 200 RGB LED's worth  60W of power.

Here some data:

• 0,3W per SMD (60 LEDW per meter)
• 3,3m (2,5 as lowest) to run
• 5V

Here my concerns: Voltage dropouts and the huge amount of Ampere that need to go through this (~12A).

 

I want to know how to power those LED's with my PSU.

How could I wire this?

One direct line of power or maybe every now and then a new power line and a bridge for the digital signal? Open for any suggestions.

 

Sincerely schmidti

[ELSknutson]

molex connector  just use the black and red wires  for 5v   I am pretty sure one  molex rail can hold that many   

[W-L]

4 minutes ago, 5chmidti said:

Hello Guys,

I'm trying to power 200 RGB LED's worth  60W of power.

Here some data:

• 0,3W per SMD (60 LEDW per meter)
• 3,3m (2,5 as lowest) to run
• 5V

Here my concerns: Voltage dropouts and the huge amount of Ampere that need to go through this (~12A).

 

I want to know how to power those LED's with my PSU.

How could I wire this?

One direct line of power or maybe every now and then a new power line and a bridge for the digital signal? Open for any suggestions.

 

Sincerely schmidti

It depends how you are going to install and apply them but your going to want to wire the LED strips in parallel or have a large amount of voltage drop. Here's an example, you can also have it setup so you use multiple power supplies using inline boosters to allow for power to be added for long series runs.

[cron.7]

3 minutes ago, W-L said:

It depends how you are going to install and apply them but your going to want to wire the LED strips in parallel or have a large amount of voltage drop. Here's an example, you can also have it setup so you use multiple power supplies using inline boosters to allow for power to be added for long series runs.

So like this:

Cut every 50cm or so and take one 5V molex and split the 5V rail and Ground into multiple endings to make them parallel. And then do bridges for the digital signal. And then solder the 5V splitted wires to the 5V contact of the LED's and the ground ones to the ground contact.

???

[W-L]

8 minutes ago, 5chmidti said:

So like this:

Cut every 50cm or so and take one 5V molex and split the 5V rail and Ground into multiple endings to make them parallel. And then do bridges for the digital signal. And then solder the 5V splitted wires to the 5V contact of the LED's and the ground ones to the ground contact.

???

50cm is a pretty short, you can do the full 5M (personally I don't go more than 3M), so one full roll, just don't add multiple 5M rolls end to end since that is when your going to run into issues with massive voltage drop and high current at the beginning. Splitting it up like in parallel shown in the image will ensure the lights are all evenly lite and 

 

Also RGB LED strips that come on a roll are power via 12V, the only time the bridges or amplifiers help are if you doing something like this where you must have a continuous run or a lot of strips on one controller so it needs to boost the signal:

 

 

[Zando_]

What are you trying to light up? Just wondering...

[mariushm]

A molex connector can do about 5-6A safely, so about 25-30 watts. 

You should split the strip in 3 smaller strips and use 3 molex connectors to give 5v to the individual chunks of led strip.

 

Also keep in mind that modern ATX power supplies are optimized to output most power on 12v and little power on 3.3v and 5v - you have maybe 120-150 watts "budget" for both 3.3v and 5v, but each of the voltages can output up to around 16-20A ... that would be 5v x 20a = 100 watts.

Some components on your motherboard will use a bit of current on 5v, the mechanical drives and SSD use some current from 5v .. so it really wouldn't be a wise idea to take up to 60 watts from 5v, from the same power supply that powers your computer.

 

you could buy DC-DC converters which convert 12v to 5v at some amount of current, and then you'd be able to safely power such strips from your power supply.

 

Alternatively, you can buy separate 5v only power supplies (cheapest and lowest power power supplies would be the cheap usb chargers which would do 5v at 1-2A or maximum 10 watts) or industrial 5v power supplies that can do 50-200 watts, or you could just use a second cheap atx power supply...

 

[cron.7]

23 minutes ago, W-L said:

50cm is a pretty short, you can do the full 5M (personally I don't go more than 3M), so one full roll, just don't add multiple 5M rolls end to end since that is when your going to run into issues with massive voltage drop and high current at the beginning. Splitting it up like in parallel shown in the image will ensure the lights are all evenly lite and 

 

Also RGB LED strips that come on a roll are power via 12V, the only time the bridges or amplifiers help are if you doing something like this where you must have a continuous run or a lot of strips on one controller so it needs to boost the signal:

 

 

Here is what I'm trying to do:

3,3 meter of WS2812 RGB LED's (0,3W per SMD/RGB LED) to lighten up behind my desk. The signal side of things is completely planned out with an arduino nano connected to my pc. My PSU will provide power for my lighting setup. All power necessary will be provided through a direct connection to the PSU.

 

There will be around 4 different controlled LED-Strips (first plan was to do only behind my desk, but why stop when I got 5 meter? ^^) each different controlled strip will be connected parallel to the 5 V molex,as you suggested.

 

You say I don't have to cut 3,3 meter? Won't I may burn the LED's because I send 12A through them? I know it's only 5V and 12A, but it's still quite high. Someone in another thread said:

 

Quote

If you want to use meters upon meters of LEDs, I can guarantee you it will not work. The traces on the strips will suffer from too much Vdrop and they will probably burn. 

Quote

You won't have so much current per led. 

You'll have around 10-15mA per color , less than 50mA per led for leds that can be controlled individually.

If your leds use more than that, they'll need some active cooling, like taping the led strip to some aluminum strip or some metal, otherwise they'd burn up if they're kept at high brightness 24/7.

But it's simple physic to work this one out: P=U*I -> 60W/5V= 12A

 

After that I got no more answers, that's why I'm asking again.

 

Thanks for your help so far.

[W-L]

8 minutes ago, 5chmidti said:

Here is what I'm trying to do:

3,3 meter of WS2812 RGB LED's (0,3W per SMD/RGB LED) to lighten up behind my desk. The signal side of things is completely planned out with an arduino nano connected to my pc. My PSU will provide power for my lighting setup. All power necessary will be provided through a direct connection to the PSU.

There will be around 4 different controlled LED-Strips (first plan was to do only behind my desk, but why stop when I got 5 meter? ^^) each different controlled strip will be connected parallel to the 5 V molex,as you suggested.

You say I don't have to cut 3,3 meter? Won't I may burn the LED's because I send 12A through them? I know it's only 5V and 12A, but it's still quite high. Someone in another thread said:

But it's simple physic to work this one out: P=U*I -> 60W/5V= 12A

After that I got no more answers, that's why I'm asking again.

Thanks for your help so far.

For long runs of LED strips I would source a 12V version and not go with the 5V style ones. I'm assuming you are looking at ones like the neopixel, there are adressable 12V style LED's which would increase the voltage and reduce the amperage allowing for longer runs which sounds like what you are trying to achieve.

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1138

 

https://www.amazon.com/ALITOVE-Addressable-Waterproof-Backlight-Advertising/dp/B01M3PPTJG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495831062&sr=8-1\

[cron.7]

3 minutes ago, W-L said:

For long runs of LED strips I would source a 12V version and not go with the 5V style ones. I'm assuming you are looking at ones like the neopixel, there are adressable 12V style LED's which would increase the voltage and reduce the amperage allowing for longer runs which sounds like what you are trying to achieve.

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1138

 

https://www.amazon.com/ALITOVE-Addressable-Waterproof-Backlight-Advertising/dp/B01M3PPTJG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495831062&sr=8-1\

I already got http://m.ebay.de/itm/191927973049?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&_mwBanner=1 in february, so switching is not really an option

[W-L]

6 minutes ago, 5chmidti said:

I already got http://m.ebay.de/itm/191927973049?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&_mwBanner=1 in february, so switching is not really an option

Alright then in that case I would limit the connection to around 1M per run so it doesn't apply too much current though a single strip, only about 3.6A instead of a single eun with 12Amps near the main connection which may overload the traces. 

[cron.7]

14 minutes ago, W-L said:

Alright then in that case I would limit the connection to around 1M per run so it doesn't apply too much current though a single strip, only about 3.6A instead of a single eun with 12Amps near the main connection which may overload the traces. 

Okay so just cut every 1m and run all of them in parallel from a 5V molex.

Should I split the load between multiple molex connectors if possible or is one enough?

[W-L]

1 minute ago, 5chmidti said:

Okay so just cut every 1m and run all of them in parallel from a 5V molex.

Should I split the load between multiple molex connectors if possible or is one enough?

Split it between different molex connections a molex as said is only capable of a max of around 7amps if I remember correctly. Just make sure the PSU has enough amperage to provide all the necessary power. 

[cron.7]

5 minutes ago, W-L said:

Split it between different molex connections a molex as said is only capable of a max of around 7amps if I remember correctly. Just make sure the PSU has enough amperage to provide all the necessary power. 

Okay thanks man. Currently I've got a decent PSU (thermaltake 600W Berlin), but l will get a new one in like june, because of the LED's and because my psu is the loudest part in idle.

[cron.7]

On 26.5.2017 at 11:16 PM, W-L said:

Split it between different molex connections a molex as said is only capable of a max of around 7amps if I remember correctly. Just make sure the PSU has enough amperage to provide all the necessary power. 

Two questions:

1. When I have 4 strips and I got only one that's on while the rest is off, will those who are off still get power or does only the one that is on get power and the others don't get anything?
2. Do I need wires with a certain diameter to handle all this current?

Sorry if this is like really obvious, but I want to go the save route ;-)

 

[W-L]

7 hours ago, 5chmidti said:

Two questions:

1. When I have 4 strips and I got only one that's on while the rest is off, will those who are off still get power or does only the one that is on get power and the others don't get anything?
2. Do I need wires with a certain diameter to handle all this current?

Sorry if this is like really obvious, but I want to go the save route ;-)

For this application since they are addressable you will need to have it so it's programmed such that the lights on one string are getting a signal to light up and the others to be inactive. This will need to be done through the arduino to the different strings. 

 

For wire thickness since the amperage is fairly low per string something like 20AWG is more than enough to handle everything.