Sure, you could get a regular light fixture like a normal person… Or you could use close to a thousand RGB LEDs to light your room!
That’s what [Dmitry] decided to do after trying to figure out the best way to light his pad. You see, his room is 4 by 4 meters, and WS2812 RGB LED strips happen to come in 4 meter lengths… Coincidence? We think not.
The problem with using 16 meters of LED strips is powering them… You see, at 16 meters, you’re looking at about 5V @ 57.6A — and we’re guessing you probably don’t have a 5V 60A power supply handy. Not to mention if you run them in series, the resistance of the system is going to kill your efficiency and the last LEDs probably won’t even work… So [Dmitry] had to break the system up. He has two power supplies feeding the strips from the middle of each pair — that way, he doesn’t have to worry about any voltage drops due to the length of the strips.
Controlling them was the next fun part. Using an ATMega, and a Nordic FOB (discontinued but useful RF remote) he’s able to control the lights to do whatever he wants — and he’s shared the source on his website as well.
For an even fancier LED room setup, check out this sculpted LED lit room that looks more like an ice cave than anything else!
I really wish they’d have run 48v lines and had local buck regulators to 5v. Fusing too, tens of amps on that thin bendy tape means house fire.
I wonder what the house prices are in greece at the moment.
I didn’t realize how inefficient this type of light is. I have a comparably sized room which gets plenty bright with four BR30 LED bulbs @ 18W each, so 72W total. 250W would be blinding.
BR30 is flood light bulb, with reflecting mirror, so it must be more efficient. This is diffused light, which is more comfortable.
I covered my 5×5m living room with 272×1W LEDs (actually, I limited the current to 85% of Imax) directed to the ceiling, so the light is soft and nonaggressive. Red, green, blue and yellow LEDs, 68 pieces each, and it’s quite enough – slightly brighter, as it should be, so you can adjust it.
Then dont buy them.🤡
Hmm, so the point is that he needs some vertical strips in the edges of the room to compliment the ceiling ones.
I meant ‘complement’ of course, but ‘compliment’ isn’t too bad a mistake :)
Use 12v rgb led strips, would be less power ungry… they are 24v strip too but they are twice hungry …
With an rgb controller it would do the same job, but you will lose the control effect since ws2812 are data controlled strips.
To me it seems that 12V RGB led strips are not very efficient either. I have 60 watts worth of cheap rgb led strips in my bedroom, and it is about as bright as a 10 watt CFL would be.
Now I get it. You are not really talking about connecting the strings in series. Inside each string the LEDs are in parallen so the power lines go from one end to the other. What you are referring to as “in series” is to connect the power lines from the end of one string to the beginning of the next.
He could have used additional cables (in parallel to the near strings) with less resistance to power the strings further away. Then one power supply in the middle would have been enough.
What’s the point of that violet/blacklight hue for room lighting?
Other than growing pot?
Actually, I think I *do* have a 5V 60A supply kicking around that I’ve never been able to figure out what to do with it. I’m not sure this is it…
It’s like a 1D laser show…
Damn, he beat me ;-)
I have 8 stairs from my terrace to my garden. I plan to mount 105 LEDs (60 LEDs per meter with epoxy coating) unter each stair, which sums up to 840 LEDs = 50.4 A @ 5V.
I bought one 5V 90A power supply (meanwell hrpg 450-5).
The LEDs are controlled by a Teensy 3.1 with an OctoWS2811 adapter board.
I feed every strip from both sides to cope with the voltage drop across the strip.
Additionally, while testing, I faced a HUGE voltage drop and heat across the supply line, which splits into 8 thinner lines to the strips after 6 meters on one side (3 meters on the other side).
I’ll have to use 3-5 AWG (16-25 mm²) to deal with a worst case scenario (all LEDs at 100%, shorter distance interrupted).
If you use an enclosure so there is no danger of electrocution the cheapest led light is 5mm Leds fastened in series. A full wave bride and cap charges to almost E peak and the number of LEDs in series depends on color (V forward) If the string is selected to turn on at 130 volts an LM317 can handle the regulation because E peak is too high for unballasted LEDs. Since the current is 20 – 30 mA the regulator requires minimal heat sink. I bought 1000 LEDs for $11.50 shipping included so you see 2 strings of LEDs is about 60 watts. Beaucoup light!
and only $2 of LEDs
I did something like this, and I can control it from my NDS/Smart Phone/PC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0oOiRP9048
I’m mostly curious about the NDS game