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I WANT to add low voltage led lights around the rim of my pool. I think IP68 rated are the best. The pool is above ground and is 30x15 so I would need about 5ea 16ft strips. I would like to use the multi color lights and have one controller if possible. Could I use one hefty 12v power supply and run separate leads to each section?

Any ideas and recommendations would be appreciated.

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  • yes, that could work if the controller can handle that much current. – dandavis Aug 3 at 19:43
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    My neighbor tried this. While the strips themselves are IP68 waterproof, the connections aren’t. Chlorine causes the connections to degrade rapidly. He did finally manage to encapsulate the end with hobby resin, and that seems to be making it work. – Tyson Aug 3 at 20:50
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    Yes, but there's a big problem. Inside the LED strips are narrow little "wires" (PC board traces) that carry power downline to all the LEDs. You can connect LED strips end-to-end, but those little traces are very thin "wires" and are not designed to power an unlimited number of strips. 5 will burn out the wires, 2 is risky. Regardless, you'll have visible dimming of the farther-away LEDs. It won't be pretty. So you need to run heavier feeder wires and feed it from several locations along the LED strip. The "return" (common) needs to carry 3x as much current. – Harper Aug 4 at 1:36

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