First of all, I’m new here on the forum and ended up here as I need help with a 12v setup for my parents’ 4x4 offgrid camper…
I’ve searched the forum but didn’t find what I was looking for, so hopefully I can explain my thoughts and hopefully, some of you people can help me out.
Car informations:
We’re running a 12v 105ah lithium battery, there’s a 220v inverter in the car (we’re from Denmark) - But we don’t wanna use that for the cabin light.
We have a switch panel and want the ON/OFF for the lights there (if it makes any sense having that, I think it depends on the controller unit, would be great if something like the EPS32 could remember the last known light option. Or maybe the ON/OFF switch should only shut the LED strip off?)
Thoughts on LED placement:
The ceiling is fitted with acoustic “wall panels” - and the space between the wood parts is 13mm.
We want two Led strips mounted to the roof, mounted in a “neon tube” (T0513 for 10mm PCB ) .
Therefore the PCB width needs to be 10mm.
The length of each LED strip would be 2 meters.
We want full-color control and the opportunity for cool effects, for drink nights, controlled by the Phone (Bluetooth) and if possible also a remote.
In the sleeping area (foot end and head end), we want “a new group” of the same LED strips as above, and with the same options, The total length of the LED strips is 3 meters.
We also need white light in the cabinets and other places in the car, i was thinking of some kind of LED that could shift between the kelvins 2700k-6000k. The need for effects here is minimal, and the total length of the needed LED is 6 meters.
Product thoughts:
LED for roof panel and sleeping area - http://tiny.cc/ierrvz (FCOB SPI RGB 12v 630)
White LED’s - http://tiny.cc/nerrvz (FCOB CCT LED 12v 640)
My first thought was to use an SP630E Controller, but I think something like the EPS32 maybe would be a better choice for what we want.
Does this sound like something that could work? Should I go for a 12to5v converter option instead?
Any help would be nice, both LED-wise and controller-wise.
Hi Frederik. Here you can find a controller for your project that is able to handle 5 to 24 volts, have a look and see if it will work for your project.
This controller runs on esp32 with the external antenna and can be set-up to remember the last setting as well as you can set-up timers to turn the lights on or off.
Also if you need one that can handle more than couple thousands of leds the big brother will do the job.
Here is one of my dig quad set-up running 1300 LEDs
I made a 12v setup for a Christmas lights display in our camper van. Granted it was a lot of LEDs, 3000 or so, on full white it was 20a.
You will be surprised just how much current is needed to run LEDs, it soon adds up. There is a lot of 12v tape options now so you only need a much smaller 12v -5v psu to run the controller.
Make sure you add appropriate fuse protection
The standby current of the LEDs soon mounts up so if it’s a permanent feature then I’d make sure your controller makes use of a relay to the LEDs.
You can have an inline power switch for full isolation and assign a preset that gets selected on boot. That way you can have a basic on/off.
The espnow remote is also a useful option to select a few presets and provide a brightness control
Hi AguassissiM,
Thank you for your reply, I will find an EPS32 and order the LED strips today.
Hopefully, I can get it to work, there are not that many LEDs, so it sounds like it shouldn’t be a problem.
Hi Garry,
Thank you for your reply, sounds like a cool Christmas light setup, as said to AguassissiM, we do not have that many LEDs, so hopefully I wouldn’t take that many amps. The battery is charged from both solar panels and the alternator, so we should have power enough.
I will of course add the appropriate fuses for this
Sounds like a very good idea with the relay, but how would you set that up?
Would you have both the inline power switch and relays?
How do we assign a preset that is selected on boot?
I will have a look at that remote, does it require a special EPS32 board then?
I dont think the remote needs a special board just needs to be assosicated with your controller. Config/WiFi Setup/Enable ESP-NOW.
There are other IR remote options you can use too.
For the power-up preset set it via Config/LED Preferences/Defaults/Apply Preset. Then when you use the switch the LEDs will turn on as configured by the preset.
I don’t like parasitic devices connected to my camper lesuire battery they all add up one by one. So either way I would have the switch. That and a start-up preset set, anyone can turn the lights on/off.
Without a relay between the the LEDs and supply the leach can be quite high. So yes I would have a relay too if it were a permanent setup.
Some ready made controllers already have a relay built in. The relay is described here and is setup via Config/LED Preferences/Relay GPIO. You will likely need some additional drive circuitry to trigger the relay as GPIO will need protection from backEMF and will not be able to supply enough current.
