I´m struggling to understand which is the WLED parameter that actually determines the current draw of a led strip, I have a SK6812 RGBNW 144 leds per meter, I’ve used to power the strip a 5 volts 4.5 amps power bank or 5 volts 3 amps wall brick, in both cases, I have set the amps limiter of wled to 3000 and 4500 mah and 100% brightness, to measure the current draw I’ve used a multimeter and one of those USB testers that measures time, voltage and mah draw + time usage, in both cases, I’ve found that the WLED amps limiter doesn´t make an effect on the current draw yet the brightness does, furthermore, despite which power supply I use, I never reach more than 1850 mah current draw using pink color, surprisingly, pink and yellow colors are those who draw more current, white only draws between 1500 and 1600 mah, anyone that has some practical experience on why I am not able to draw the full 3 and 4.5 amps respectively from the power sources despite configuring the amps limiter of wled properly plus some knwledge on why despite having enough power from the source the strip does not consume more than 1850 mah?
Extra information, I drive the strip with an ESP32 powered with a different power source, wled works solid, no problems with functionalities colours, blinking or such, everything runs fine.
For starters, ignore the ABL, either turn it off or tell it you’ve got a 40000mA supply attached.
The ABL doesn’t measure or really “limit” anything, it does a calculation based on what you tell it your LEDs draw and what you think your power supply can deliver. If you set a total# of LEDs to a brightness level that would theoretically draw more than the limits you’ve told it, then the ABL steps down the brightness of your whole string to theoretically bring the current consumption down.
If you want to know what your LEDs actually draw, then use an Ammeter in line with the DC power line going to your strip. Measure the current drawn when you light only 10 LEDs at 100% brightness. Divide this number by 10 and you’ll get the maximum power consumed by 1 LED. You can do further tests with 20 and 30 LEDs, dividing by 20 and 30 respectively, and average the results.
Once you have a real maximum power consumption number for a single LED, plug that number into the ABL as a “Custom” power consumption figure. You’ll find the ABL now works to keep your total consumption at or below the total you tell it you have. It will arbitrarily change your brightness levels to keep the numbers down.
You can do these consumption tests for each of 100% Red, Green and Blue independently and get the consumption figures for each colour. When you add the numbers for R,G,and B you should get the same as what you got for White. What you’ll likely see is the numbers are not an even 1/3 of the White total.
That’s why some colours can proportionately “draw more” than others at the same brightness.
Thanks so much for the information, I’ve realized that what were actually making a bottle neck for me not to get enough current draw for the strip and for white colour were the thickness of the awg I was using, once I upgraded to a thicker cable so did the current, many thanks, It’s important to always consider at least a 22 AWG as is the same than the strip has.