Hello. Nube here. I have a question regarding controlling a 5 meter addressable LED strip.
Originally.I was considering purchasing a 5 meter strip with 300 leds. These have 60 leds per meter. I had considered buying an Ardiuno Uno, until I saw a youtube about this subject, but learned the UNO my not have enough memory. So I reseached the Mega. After learning the Mega has 4 times the memory, I then decided to get the 5 rolls of 1 meter each of strips that have 144 leds per meter, and solder them end to end. But, given I am a complete nube when it comes to Arduino products, I joined here to see if anyone can link me to any kind of info regarding controlling strips which will have approx 720 leds, give or take. Also, any info about powering this quantity of addressable leds.
Hi darrellg. Hey, thanks a million. I just discovered my post has been approved by the moderator. That’s why it took so long to find my post again. Ok, will check those out. There is sooooooo many different aspects to this subject. I must have viewed a hundred youtubes etc, but I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing before committing my dollars to it. Thanks again.
I checked out the Adafruit page. Wow. Lots of info. Especially powering these strips On the page for a one meter 144 Neopixel strip, the technical data states each Led draws 60ma. Which when calculated according to their specs, would comes out to a whopping 8,640ma! Which if I am correct(no electrical expert here) comes out to EIGHT AMPS! Is that correct? Holy crap. Given I need a 5 meter long strip… if I am not mistaken… this would take a 50 amp power supply, no? If so, well, looks like I might have to lower my desired LED count to maybe 60 per meter. Even then… holy moly, that’s still a little over 3 amps per meter. Although, it does say as a rule of thumb, you can reduce the calculated full draw amperage by 1/3 or 1/2, but I am wondering what that really does? Even at 1/2, the 144 led strip would still draw about 4 amps, and an entire 5 meter strip would draw about 20 amps. Maybe I could power each 1 meter strip by a separate 5 amp power supply, while keeping the data rail connected to all 5 strips? Although, now that I think about it, the cost of doing all this is getting out of control! Ok guys, considering 1 meter of 144 Leds cost a whopping $60, plus the power supplies… whoa! rolls eyes Well, that kinda does it for me. I really don’t have that kind of budget. I think I’m gonna forget about this project. At least using Adafruit products. Maybe the ones at Sparkfun. 5 meters for $100 is a whole lot cheaper. But I still have to think about this now. Ok, thanks for the help anyway.
60 mA per device is when they are set to white at full brightness. White turns on red, green, and blue at the same time. You can reduce current requirements by reducing brightness and using primary colors (red, green, blue), which take up to 20 mA per device, or secondary colors (cyan, magenta, yellow), which take up to 40 mA per device. If you need white, there are also RGBW strips available that only use 20 mA for white.
When you use high density strips, the current can add up. Your conversion is correct, 8640 mA is 8.64 A. You can use multiple power supplies as long as you keep all the grounds connected together.