Where to inject power on long tuns of pixel strip

BallaratLights

New elf
Joined
Jan 24, 2018
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I am planning to replace about 50m of ropelights with pixel strip. In order to make it easier to mount The strip will be mounted in 5m lengths of "air seeder hose" The strip is 12v in 5m rolls with 30 LEDs per meter.
Is this too long a gap between power inject points?


Does 30 LEDs per metre mean 30 control points or do I multiply by 3 channels ?
If I divide the roof into two sections that will mean each section will have 783 LEDs The 783 pixels will draw how much power?

Any info would be gladly accepted.
 

OzAz

Senior elf
Global moderator
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Dec 29, 2015
Messages
997
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Newcastle
30 LEDs/meter x 5 meters = 150 LEDs
However, with 12V strip there are 3 LEDs per section. There are 50 sections each section has 3 channels (R,G, B), which equals 150 channels.

Each 1 x 5m length of strip will run OK with no power injection.
Strip consumes about 7.2 Watts / meter, so each 5m length of strip will consume 36 Watts in total.
50m (10 x 5m) would therefore consume 360 Watts in total.

Remember a power supply (P/S) should not be run more than about 85% capacity. Thus maximum drawer from a 350 Watts power supply should therefore be about 300 Watts. So for strip, about 8 x 5m lengths per 350 Watt power supply.

Disclaimers: Figures are approximate. Maximum Watts based on all LEDs at 100% brightness. The 85% P/S capacity drawer is a conservative amount. For a high quality (eg Meanwell) P/S you can draw up to 95% OK, for a cheap no name brand you might even want to drop to 80%.
 
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