Timeline for What voltage adapter do I need for a 5 meter 5050 LED strip?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
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| Mar 23, 2015 at 0:04 | comment | added | Aloysius Defenestrate | Completely agree that 1x5 = 5x1, from a power consumption perspective. I was trying to suggest shorter segments wired in parallel. Shame on me for breezing through the details. | |
| Mar 22, 2015 at 23:11 | comment | added | Some Guy | Hi aloysius - I think we are thinking the same thing, just from different directions. There is a voltage drop, to be sure. 10 volts at the end of the strip sounds about right. There is just not very much copper in those things. Copper is expensive, so using less lowers the cost. - What I was saying is that 5 meters of the leds will use the same amount of power if you have 20 segments of 250 cm or 10 segments of 0,5 meters. I think your idea was if you use 4 meters of the stuff, instead of 5. Then you will get less voltage drop. So you will have more power per led and makes improves all leds | |
| Mar 22, 2015 at 21:19 | comment | added | Aloysius Defenestrate | Appreciate the discussion. I'm not an electrical expert, but I trust this source: budgetlightforum.com/node/9394 . Partial quote: "I hooked up 12V to the wires and voila.. 2 amps... I checked the voltage/current over a 3 LED segment near the wires. The LEDs were drawing 16.5 mA. The full strip should have been drawing 3.25 amps... Hmmm... It turns out that the flexible copper tape conductors that the LEDs are mounted on cannot handle the current. There is a big drop in voltage down the length of the strip. The groups at the far end of the strip were getting less than 10 volts." | |
| Mar 22, 2015 at 18:36 | comment | added | Some Guy | I have to respectfully disagree with you on your answer. 5 meters of the the leds will not have less voltage drop, no matter how short the segments. | |
| Mar 21, 2015 at 21:04 | history | answered | Aloysius Defenestrate | CC BY-SA 3.0 |