First and foremost, I have little knowledge when it comes to leds. I have already done a small project where I removed regular lights from my Christmas tree and replaced them with led bulbs (forgot from the top of my head which ones exactly). I used a quinled dig quad and was able to calculate the appropriate power supply needed and the amount of power injections needed as well for a successful project.
That being said, I bought sk6812 5v led strips (30 per meter) and would like to install them in my roof as Christmas lights and I am planning to use buck converters to use a 24v power supply for wiring reasons. I need to buy the buck converters, wiring, power supply and the board to control them (planning on getting the quinled big octa board with a power board (which power board is going to depend on how many power injections I’m going to need for the entire project. So, I need to pretty much buy the rest of the supplies. Even though I have a pretty good idea on how to wire and install the project, I have so many questions/doubts considering I’ve never used buck converters.
So far, I have calculated how much power I am going to need and the necessary power injection points I am going to need for the 5v leds.
My first question is if my calculations are correct? Can someone please check my math before I move forward
Here are my calculations using the info on the BTF website:
- 1m = 9w
- 5m = 9w * 5 = 45w
- 45w / 5v = 9 Amps per strip
My next question:
That means that in 4 strips (20 meters of 30 leds per strip = 600 total), I would need 36 Amps. Quindor in his YouTube channel uses the rules of 4 amps at the front and end, and 8 amps for the middle injections. Is this a general rule of thumb or do I have to calculate the amps for MY setup?
If the Amps needed per injection are the same as the video, that would mean that even if adding power injection in each end, I would end up with 32 Amps total where I need 36 Amps so I assume something is wrong with my calculations. Quindor does have a chart (real-world LED power usage sheet) where 5 meters uses 33.9w but for 60 leds per meter (again, mine are 30 per meter). He also uses his chart to calculate the watts needed in his 5v scenario. I don’t have the tools like he does to measure the real time usage on mine.
I will be posting more questions/doubts once people start answering my post. Thanks in advance!!!