Thanks @nathanfiscus. I don’t actually have a light entity with the legacy zwave integration - I’ve got 4 sensor entities and a zwave entity but no light entity.
I’ve been playing with the parameters, and it seems to me like I should be able to set the strip to static warm white using parameter 21 if I could figure out the byte settings. Do you agree, or am I off base here?
For parameter 21, I can calculate the values manually for the rgb colors using color*1 + level*256 + duration*65536 + effect*16777216 and get the same values given by your nice toolbox app. However, I can’t figure out how to account for the extra bits in bytes 1 and 4 that permit the use of the white leds.
The controller uses 12VDC. The power supply that ships is rated at 2A.
To add on what @Bry said, it is a pretty standard supply. So if you have 12v DC low voltage wiring… that can supply the amperage… You could wire up the correct plug to power the controller. I do not have mine in front of me but it seemed like it was the pretty generic 5.5 x 2.5mm barrel plug. DIY versions of those (crimp or solder) are pretty common.
Edit:
If your low voltage wiring is NOT 12v or is low voltage AC, it IS possible but more complicated.
Thanks @nathanfiscus! Editing the zwcft_***.xml file as you mentioned above worked for me, and gets the light entity to show up for me. I can now turn it on and off and have a little control over color and temperature, although as you mentioned, it’s still somewhat buggy.
The more I read, it looks like parameter 21 should allow me to set this to solid warm white, but I can’t figure out what value to use for Byte 4 - can you advise? Here’s what I have:
Byte 1 (color): 2700
Byte 2 (level): 10
Byte 3 (duration): 255
Byte 4 (effect): ?
My best guess for Byte 4 was 9 (1 + 8) giving me a total value for the parameter of 167711884, but unfortunately that doesn’t work, so I think I must be wrong on my Byte 4 value. Any thoughts?
Anybody tried the maximum length out yet? I have 12ft of strip and the output drops to a maximum of 63% with no additional connectors - If I add the 2 T’s I have been wanting and the additional 2ft I need I don’t imagine this will be bright enough to be useful in my application
That being said - can we replace this with a power supply that’s able to support more lights or will that destroy something?
I also tried getting this running with home assistant but I can only control one white LED, and can’t disable the center color LED so maybe when I get that center one turned off this will still be bright enough for me
Interesting question. I was wondering how well 16 ft was going to work given voltage drop issues.
What’s happening is that controller is limiting the brightness as the current draw reaches a preset limit. It would be interesting to find out from Inovelli how that limit is set. If you substitute a 3A power supply, will the controller recognize it and adjust the ceiling accordingly? I don’t know if that’s even possible.
Typically, with a 12v 5 meter LED strip you would inject power at both ends, but you can’t do that here as-is.
I have 16ft, and the limit seems to depend on color temperature (at least for white). I am seeing it settle at 90% for 5000K.
I too, noticed the strip dimming from 99 down to 55 with only 12.5ft of strip connected (steady white, whatever the default color temperature was from the factory).
I’m guessing the “16ft before dimming” that was posted earlier in this thread is only for 1 set of LEDs (cool white, warm white, RGB) and anything using more than one set will be restricted to shorter lengths if you want full brightness.
That said, it’s extremely confusing to set the level to 99 and come back and have it be something else. While it would be nice to know when the strip is limiting based on current restrictions, I’d much prefer that to operate like the maximum level on the dimmer switches, so that if I set the level to 99, then it continues to report at 99, instead of reporting that it’s at half power and making me think I can turn it up.
The unit itself will limit the current to 2 amps (regardless of the power supply used going into the box). The device will automatically lower the brightness if it exceeds 2A current draw. If you want to exceed this value, you would need to insert 12v power into the strip itself.
Here is the power usage on my LED strip using various colors at maximum brightness, measured with a kill-a-watt meter. The LED strip is 6 feet in length.
| Color | Watts |
|---|---|
| WW | 10.5w |
| CW | 10.8w |
| Red | 8w |
| Green | 7.9w |
| Blue | 7.9w |
| RGB (all 3 colors lit) | 7.8w |
| RGBWWCW (all LEDS lit) | 20w (brightness was automatically lowered) |
Yea it looks like 20W is the limit then, probably not suitable for my application I should have waited to see more user reports before buying these. I don’t think many people will use all the LED’s at once but I would have hoped it could at least support it at the standard length. Maybe there’s a firmware update in the future to allow a flag to allow this to jump up to 4-10A with a different supply
For power injection - its probably not a big deal to do it from the opposite end or to mockup a connector to allow it in-line but its my first addressable strip so im not sure how it would deal with on/off/brightness/etc. Got some reading to do on my end. I also haven’t used two power supplies before, always a single one
FYI, you can’t use two power supplies. When you inject voltage, it needs to come from the same power supply.
Good catch. I added the preference and the code looks like it should work but I haven’t tested it. The new version is in Github.
My apologies if this has been asked already, it’s hard to search these on mobile. Just a couple of questions…
I see that the maximum length is 8ft before lumen drop. Does that mean 8ft of lighted sections or 8ft total? Like, if I did 12ft of extension cords (no lights) and then 8ft of lights would I get full lumens?
Any plans for other 90 degree turn adapters, like if we wanted to lay the strip flat and go around a corner?
What’s the status of the tariffs and pricing? Are prices still expected to go up this year?
I received my extensions, they are 24g wire
I just tested 8 1ft sections and 1, 2, and 3 extensions (4, 8, 12ft)
On the default settings (WW, CW illuminated)
4ft - 95%
8ft - 95%
12ft - 90%, 95%. Sometimes it dimmed to 90, sometimes it didn’t
My big concern was the LED’s were probably only getting 10-11v after the extension but it looks ok. I think you would be fine so long as you used one white or the other, plus the RGB
FWIW - 8ft of extension plus 12ft of LED ran 65%, and so did 8+13.5ft for some reason, as well as 12+13.5 ft
@Eric_Inovelli Do you have any thoughts on the light output dropping and/or getting an injector option going? I know length output wasn’t a big part of the beta testing, but I’m guessing it came up in initial hardware testing?
Now my idea of a different wall wart wasn’t a bad idea.