I’m looking to install indirect direct lighting in the ceiling molding in my office. How many strips can you hook together? The room is about 10’ by 9’, so the full run will be just under 40’.
Thanks for any info!
16 feet is the max. The wall wart power supply is only 2A and there aren’t any power injection options.
So I’d need 3 kits? Is there any way to make them work in unison?
If you go with the Inovelli strips, yes, you’d need three. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to sync the controllers (Reference Eric 1/26/21 post.) So you can’t have a chase effect jump from one to another, for example. With random effects, you wouldn’t notice the same issue, however.
40’ is a long LED run. There are two things that factor into power requirements, the length of the run and the number of LEDs. The more LEDs in the run, the higher the current draw. Additionally, as the run lengthens, so does the voltage drop, which effects LED performance.
The Inovelli LED strip uses a 2A wall wart power supply and I believe the controller caps the current draw short of that. I’m guessing that the 16’ length was determined to be the maximum length taking these two factors into account to insure the LEDs function properly at that length.
When you have a longer LED run, you not only need a larger power supply but you need to inject voltage at the other end of the strip or at points in the run depending on the voltage drop. As of now, Inovelli does not have a larger power supply or power injection solution.
Just to give you an idea for comparison, if I was doing a 40’ of LEDs using non-Inovelli LED strips and a different controller, I’d be using a 10A power supply and inject power at both ends and 2 or 3 points in the middle.
Or using 12V runs!
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I wonder if you could take an extension cable and solder in a 5VDC tap to the +5VDC/Return lines…hmmm
As long as you use the same power supply. An additional power supply requires additional steps and the force to with you.
I could be wrong, but I highly doubt you’re gonna get a 40’ run working with just one injection and 2A. The 2A alone would kill it.
It was written in the strip thread that the firmware was good for only 16’ and you set the number of pixels (the number of LEDs) so I can’t see it being extended beyond the design limit.
Typical WS2813 type LED strips could have power injected in the middle, even with a different power supply, as long as the ground and signal wires are connected. But, the controller only goes to 130 LEDs so injecting would help keep the 16’ strip brighter but not allow you to extend it further.
If you really must have it chase right around the room then maybe another solution like ESPhome would be better suited.
I’ll just throw out that I did 12V supply, WS2815 strips, ESP32, and WLED with some 12V to 5V conversion (and 3.3V to 5V for controls) for my roofline, and it works incredibly well with over 2k LED’s. I am using a 60A supply and assumed 60mA/LED (which is RGB added up).
Aren’t they already 12v strips?
@jtronicus - Yes. I may have biffed on the VDC above.
E. DC Power Connector: This is where you plug-in the included 12V power supply. The
rating of the power supply is 12V DC 2.0A.