I am buying these “FCOB RGB IC LED Light Strip WS2811 Addressable 720 LEDs Dream Full Color 12mm 24V High Density Flexible FOB COB Led Lights RA90”. Whilst I have setup a WLED 5v set in the past I am wondering what control I need for these. I see that theres a few by QuinLED that specifically say they do 20v but are quite expensive and I would rather practise with something cheap.
Also as a supplementary question would a 400w supply be adequate for 12m of these?
Thanks for advice
Every pixel addressable LED uses 5V for the data line, no matter what the power supply voltage setup.
So simply make sure you provide a stable 5V supply to your controller (either with a separate 5V 2A supply, a buck converter, or something else) and supply your LEDs with the separate power they need.
Then connect a data and a ground line from the controller to the LED input.
It’s possible you’ll need to put a level shifter on that data line as the controller technically only puts out 3.3V.
With that approach, you can use any controller you want as the power for your LEDs goes directly to your main PS, as it should.
Your controller just provides data, as it should.
Hreat thanks for advice. Much appreciated.
The stripe drives very likely 5 or 6 LEDs as once, so every 5 centimeters will have the same color. This is how higher than 5 V are commonly achieved with that addressable light modules (I did not find a 12V or 24V yet where each LED is addressable individually).
You could have a look into my controller project which would be capable of driving this LEDs (LED power supply is completely independent of the controller as long as GNDs are connected. The controller can be run at 24V using the same power source): My PCB for ESP32 with 8 LED channels - #4 by micw. I’m not familar with the other available controllers but all should do as long as you can power the stripe directly.
According to the page I found, the stripe has 21 watts per meter. So 12m have ~250 Watts and a 300W PSU should do the job. An issue might be that the stripe will draw ~20 amperes. It is very unlikely that the stripe itself is able to carry that much power. That means that you either need to split the stripe into individual segments or that you need to feed power in every few meters (I’d say, ~every 2 or 3 meters).
Be also aware that you need AWG 14 wires (or > 2mm²) to transport >20 amps. I have a setup with similar power (but 12V). Here I have split up the stripes into 8 segments and I use WAGO connecting clamps to distrubute the power from the PSU to the individual stripes.
Example:
Thanks for advice - I recieved a 20v controller so tried powering through the controller as well as also powering directly from the PSU and just using the controller for the ONE data connection. Both methods appear to work. I will run power at the at each of the 5m and 2m ends (total 14m) as I dont wish to cut them. Thanks again for advice.