Reference of Current Draws of Common RGB Lights Used

drakky

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Dec 2, 2012
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just looking at calculating currents for this years setup , however if you export models in xlights it gives you values for each model but I'm not sure how correct they are?
example led strip 12v 2818 chip 60 leds/m Ray's page says 14.4w /m on an 8.8 metre length I calculate 10.56 amps Davids led calc page doesn't list 2818 or 60 leds/m so I used 2811 12v 30 leds/m but put in 17.6 m for the length it comes out at 9.76 amps yet the current version of xlights is telling me 31.32 amps , am I not calculating this right?
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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just looking at calculating currents for this years setup , however if you export models in xlights it gives you values for each model but I'm not sure how correct they are?
example led strip 12v 2818 chip 60 leds/m Ray's page says 14.4w /m on an 8.8 metre length I calculate 10.56 amps Davids led calc page doesn't list 2818 or 60 leds/m so I used 2811 12v 30 leds/m but put in 17.6 m for the length it comes out at 9.76 amps yet the current version of xlights is telling me 31.32 amps , am I not calculating this right?
As far as I can tell the 2818 and 2811 12V strips will be essentially the same just the 2818 has data backup. If this is the case then both of them will be 18.5mA per colour per pixel. This will give you a current of about 55mA per pixel and 55mA across 3 leds. 20 pixels per metre will be 1.1A/metre or 9.7A for 8.8m. If you're getting xlights reporting 3 times that then it's possible your xlights config is setup as 1 led per pixel rather than the 3 leds per pixel that it really is. Your 8.8 metre length should be 176 pixels but I suspect you could have 528 in your setup.
 

drakky

Senior elf
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Messages
515
As far as I can tell the 2818 and 2811 12V strips will be essentially the same just the 2818 has data backup. If this is the case then both of them will be 18.5mA per colour per pixel. This will give you a current of about 55mA per pixel and 55mA across 3 leds. 20 pixels per metre will be 1.1A/metre or 9.7A for 8.8m. If you're getting xlights reporting 3 times that then it's possible your xlights config is setup as 1 led per pixel rather than the 3 leds per pixel that it really is. Your 8.8 metre length should be 176 pixels but I suspect you could have 528 in your setup.
yeah I figured that but I went off a tom stallings video he puts in lights per node which this strip has 3 lights per node so obviously his video is wrong
nodes per string.jpg
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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yeah I figured that but I went off a tom stallings video he puts in lights per node which this strip has 3 lights per node so obviously his video is wrong
View attachment 13673
Tom is right and Xlights has a bug that you can now say you've assisted in finding. When changing from 1 light per pixel to 3 lights per pixel the current should remain the same. Whilst checking this I also noticed that there is an issue with P10 panels. For a single P10 panel xlights calculates a current of 30.72A whereas it's actually closer to about 2.3 depending on whether they are 1/8, 1/4 or 1/2 scan panels.
 
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