Have purchased a 60led/m 5v sk6812 rgbw strip and will be using 1.25m in a Wled setup.
The controller is a wled flashed esp32 wroom 32d.
I am new to setting up leds but am aware that the 5v pin out will not power this length strip.
So, i realise i will need external power but am completely new to this. I have seen the low cost switching power supplies available and am confident with wiring this up but still don’t know what model i require and any other hardware required between the supply and the lights.
Please can someone guide me to what i need to purchase and the setup.
The major power consumption will be the LEDs at maximum brightness and full White.
A rough guess would be 0.2W/LED or 40mA/LED or 0.04A/LED (that’s probably on the high side, but guessing over is safer).
For 1.25m x 60 LEDs/m= 75 LEDs total.
So worst case power consumption is:
75LEDs x .04A/LED = 3.0A
That’s the total current your power supply must be able to supply to your LEDs (at maximum brigthness, full White). If you set your strip up dimmer than 100% or colours other than full white, they will draw less than that total so you size the supply for the worst case and you’ll be fine.
The ESP board will be a much smaller draw, usually max of 0.40A or so (worst case).
So you can run your strip at 100% White with a 5V 4A rated supply and not worry about drawing more power than the supply can provide.
You’ll have to size the connecting wires to be large enough to provide that 3A over the distance from the supply to the LEDs and not cause too much voltage drop.
You should also strongly consider getting a levelshifter to bring the data line for your setup up to the guaranteed level to activate the LEDs properly, see Levelshifters.