I am trying plan out what is needed to do what seems an easy project, but I am getting lost in all the LED math…(newbie) I have a garage perimeter of 180ft. would like to breakdown into 120 ft and 60ft runs that can be programed separately. Doing a baseboard diffuser that needs 96-144 leds/m , so no spotting. would like to do 5v,(since I already have like 60m worth of sk6812rgbw 144led/m 5v), and a 300watt 5v 60amp PS, and wled controller(5v) DA vegas lights). Is this even possible in 5v? Can house garage electric circuit (110/15A) handle it? At 96 to 144 leds/m, seems like a lot of injections and heavy gauge wiring, fuses, ? even at 24V it seems like a lot? If 24v is a must instead, what do i need to get?
How do I set this up??HELP?
I’d suggest you take a look at this forum thread: 24V Line for some ideas on handling injection for a larger setup.
24V w/buck converters can keep the power wiring down to a manageable level.
As far as the total power required, that comes down to the W/LED x Total # of LEDs.
The best method of determine consumption is to measure the actual draw of LEDs.
Guessing at ~.2W/LED at 100% White will give you something to start and do some rough worst case calcs.
You have 60m x 144LED/m =8640 LEDs
8640 LEDs x .2W/LED = 1728W
That’s generally a very heavy load, with cabling and hookup losses you could easily add another 30% (it could go as high as adding 50%). This type of load either needs a dedicated high current 120V circuit (call an electrician) or you split it across 2 or more breakers with multiple power supplies.
You should also note, this setup will be very bright at 100% (possibly - violating local bylaws on nuisance lighting - bright).
The other issue will be data supply for that many pixels, look at: KB Multistrip for some guidelines. You’ll likely be needing 2 or more ESP32 boards as controllers and I’d suggest you’ll be into: Long Data Lines as well to get the data to different sections of the full run.
This is a do-able project overall, but not what I’d class as “Easy”. There’s a whole bunch of details that need examination to get right.
The first thing you might ask yourself: Do you need 144LED/m density over the whole 180ft? That choice will set the total # of LEDs and therefore your total power needs. For example, standard Xmas-style strings are typically 10/m. All the above calcs get divided by about 15, making the whole setup much more manageable.
Thanks for the input…will look into going with much less LEDs/m. Did not realize the power usage and brightness issues…will have to do some testing…