Whilen out one day i saw these tubes sticking out of a skip. On closer inspection i saw they were not glass and had the perfect dufusion look.
So off i go like a lumber jack carrying 24 of these 2 meter tubes like chopped logs…
Im assuming they go into the conventional 240v tubes glass light strip fitting for kitchens and garages etc.
So i cut the end off and it had some kinda transformer (no not optimus…) in it.
So my question is …
…what the actual working voltage of the leds that were in these tubes and could i somehow power addressable leds from the step down transformer into a buck converter down to 5 volts Input into start of strip then have a small enough esp8266 solderd to other end of strip. Ans still plug them in light fitting…Hidden by end caps.
So each tube is powered by fitting with wifi and wled
The defuser looks pritty good.
Also a usb 5v varient so each tube stand alone but not alone lol…
To place anywhere with a usb plug.
The tubes are about 2 meters as said. Having to chop ends of etc i would guess 110 leds or so to fit in tube. (Ws2812b) 60 led/m
What power supply or usb rated plug would it need to power a small enough wifi esp (which wifi esp (wled)) and the leds effectively?
I may have splutted this all out wrong but hope the jist is gotten
Can’t say for certain without a closer look at the insides of one of these.
My guess would be they’re some type of white LED (6400K??? that’s “cool white”), likely smd mounted on an internal strip.
At 22W total output, you’re probably talking about between 75 and 250 individual LEDs per tube.
Just getting a count of the devices would probably tell a fair bit, individually they’ll be standard 3.5V elements
They’re likely wired in some type of series/parallel fashion so that the “step-down transformer” delivers a moderate voltage (I’d guess in the 35V-65V range) at a fixed current (100-300mA at a guess).
Can’t know for sure without some specs and/or measurements
Not an optimal device for WLED to drive, but you might be able to make something of it.
As they are, they’ll only respond to brightness control for the whole tube.
If you replace the guts with your own, the sky’s the limit…
At the price, they’re at least a great set of diffusers.
I did a similar project with some T8 8ft LED tubes. Removed the guts and 6500k LED strip and replaced with ws2812b 60 per meter and put xConnect ends on them for external controller connection.
Power will depend on how many of these you plan to connect together and how many LEDs each has. You will need power injection. Mine have the power run from 1 end to the other in the back part of the aluminum tube. I only have 2 of these created and have no problem powering them from just the beginning *with the injection run from the beginning of each tube to the far end of each tube. You will need sperate injection lines if planning on chaining a bunch together.
Do you have to glue the LEDs on top of your other ones? Will they not fit on the aluminum channel if you remove the old strip?
I would also see if you can get the tubes open without cutting the ends off so that you have something to put back on the end.
Here is a diagram of how mine work. *The circle labeled Injection is what you would likely need as you plan to run more of these.
Just a suggestion, if you have enough room to put a single pair of 18AWG between your 2 strips you can use that to power both strips from the “bottom” of the tube.
That should be sufficient to drive 2 strips at 5V without major losses, and it will tend to even out any drops.
If it proves a little shy of what you need, it’s always easy to add in some more “head end” injection.
For example if I wanted approx 8 2 mtr tubes of (2×60 ) 120 each.
Total 960 leds.
Ideas of grandeur wanting a 16×120 matrix might be s bit tall…lol
I will order the wire.
So that is the preferred gauge? For all “electrics” to do with power and strips?
Brain just peaked lol
Going back to your idea of running an injection wire underneath the strip to the other end to inject and then the idea of before of “railing” one side.
With of course serping the data wire?
Like a flag pole ?
Oh and i cant see a clean way of getting the ends off the tubes . Glued in methinks… so cutting the caps off the only way.
In one of the pic i thinks it can be see the original thinner strip has a guide that it sits in and slides the entire leanth of the tube.
The leds sit enough proud i think to glue the ws28 ontop to perfectly hold and guide them all the way through
And the idea of running injection wire can sit sandwiches between the two.
I can see it in my minds workshop lol
To get accurate power requirements, you need specs from a mfg and/or real world measurements of a strip in operation.
My napkin calculations are typically based on 0.3W per LED worst case (100% White).
So at 120 LEDs per tube, you get a worst case of 36W/tube or 7.2A per tube.
8 tubes => 288W or 58A @ 5V.
These are all worst case numbers and your real world usage will likely be far lower.
For example a tube with 100% Red (or Green or Blue) will need about 1/3 of the White load.
But if you’re going to want to be able to even briefly “light the whole room”, you need to plan on the worst case power requirements.
The wire size needed depends on the current required and the distance it has to go.
For a 2m tube, 18AWG is probably OK for a worst case 7A.
The “power bus” that will connect all these tubes is another matter, it will have to supply the current for all the tubes over the total distance the layout will cover.
There are a number of good Voltage Drop calculators in the KB.
If you play around with the distances and total current required, you’ll see that some hefty wire may be required at 5V.
You might look at multiple 5V supplies, each supply enough power for say 2 tubes, but able to be placed closer to them thereby reducing the total wire length needed.
The other approach is to go for a higher voltage “power bus” (perhaps 12V or 24V) and use a buck converter to bring the power back down to the 5V required for each tube. The higher voltage means less current, so smaller wire can be used.
As far as cutting the caps off, you might be able to glue a reasonably thin liner inside the tube to provide an “extension tube” that gives you something to put the cap back over and reattach to the strip. Conversely, you might find some standard PVC pipe caps that will fit too.
This all depends on what you plan to do with these tubes as to what you do to power them.
I would not power more than 2 tubes w/out adding additional power injection (like the circle in my pic).
If only planning on running 1 or 2 tubes connected then just the 18ga wire run from one end to the other and power entering the system from the beginning (like my pic) should be fine.
If you plan on these being a multi functional thing I would at worst case have injection wires at the far end of every second tube whether you use them or not (setup at the time dependent). *If planning on these being a serpentine matrix having the injections at the far end of every second tube would also put them all on the same side of the matrix for easy connection to a power supply/bus.
I also doubt you would need to run these at 100% brightness as they are quite bright at 60/m unless you are looking to do a white room light and to be honest RGB dose not make a very nice ‘white’ for a room light.
And remember data only flows one direction so each tube has a beg and end and will not work the other way around.
This is also an option depending on what you plan to use them for again… However I do kind of think at 120 5v LEDs you will still need to have a line run to the head end from the tail end.
