Hello,
I am going to connect programable led's with arduino uno, but i am not sure how to do it.
On the led's I have 4 cables, 12V ; 2 GND ; DIN.
I would like to buy this one power suply but i dont know that will be good
I was thinking to connect 12V cable to VIN from Arduino Cuz of having 12V dc suply, 2 GND cables into 2 GND from Arduino and DIN into digital.
My ask is will it work? If not i hope you can tell me how can i do it, bcs i never did anything with arduino.
Please post a link to the specs of the strip.
Don't connect the strip to Vin. You don't want the current for the strip to pass through the Arduino's pcb, it will be too much. Connect the psu directly to the strip and take a second pair of wires from the psu to power the Arduino.
What other hardware will be connected to the arduino? Care is needed when powering the Arduino with 12V. Although this is in the specified range, it is very easy to cause the Arduino to overheat, shut down or be damaged with a 12V supply.
PaulRB:
Please post a link to the specs of the strip.Don't connect the strip to Vin. You don't want the current for the strip to pass through the Arduino's pcb, it will be too much. Connect the psu directly to the strip and take a second pair of wires from the psu to power the Arduino.
What other hardware will be connected to the arduino? Care is needed when powering the Arduino with 12V. Although this is in the specified range, it is very easy to cause the Arduino to overheat, shut down or be damaged with a 12V supply.
PaulRB:
Please post a link to the specs of the strip.Don't connect the strip to Vin. You don't want the current for the strip to pass through the Arduino's pcb, it will be too much. Connect the psu directly to the strip and take a second pair of wires from the psu to power the Arduino.
What other hardware will be connected to the arduino? Care is needed when powering the Arduino with 12V. Although this is in the specified range, it is very easy to cause the Arduino to overheat, shut down or be damaged with a 12V supply.
There you have specification of the strip: . - Album on Imgur
Okey i get it, so how should i connect the wires?
Is there any scheme or you could just make a simple scheme just in paint?
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Ok, I think your psu should ok for this strip. You should also use a 1000uF cspacitor connected across 12V and ground, close to the strip, and a resistor around 500R in series with Din on the strip, close to the strip.
Because no other components will be connected to the Arduino, it should ok to power it with 12V by connecting a second pair of wires from the 12V supply to the Vin and ground pins on the Arduino.
PaulRB:
OK, I think your psu should OK for this strip. You should also use a 1000uF capacitor connected across 12V and ground, close to the strip,
Arguably, this is less relevant for a 12 V strip as the 12 V does not directly influence the IC. There is a resistor and capacitor providing decoupling of the supply voltage for each IC.
Or could I connect the power supply to Arduino via DC input? And then also GND from arduino to strip and digital? Would it do that or something like that? I just want from the power supply through the dc input to the arduino.
PaulRB:
You don't want the current for the strip to pass through the Arduino's pcb, it will be too much.
If only the current to power the Arduino is passing through the arduino's pcb, that is fine. If the current for the strip is passing through the arduino, not ok.
OK, now let's get specific. You connect your 12 V supply directly to the LED strip - the "12V" and "GND" terminals. You need to keep those two wires together in a single cable.
In a similar fashion, you need the data wire and ground wire to travel together as a single cable from the LED strip back to the Arduino but you should have a resistor in series with the data wire at the LED strip "DIN".
Now you want the 12 V to feed the "Vin" pin of the Arduino. This is plausible if as said, The Arduino is connected to nothing else requiring 5 V power. Now since by the same rule, this power wire must travel along with its corresponding ground wire, you already have a ground wire running from the Arduino to the LED strip, then the 12 V wire should travel from the Arduino along with the data and ground wires, to the strip and connect to the main 12 V connecting there.
So you have the three wires running together between the LED strip and Arduino. Note that since the current required by the Arduino is nowhere near as great as the LED strip, these do not have to be particularly heavy wires like those between the power supply and the LED strip.
That's what is should look like. A single cable (two wires) between power supply and LED strip, and a single cable (three wires) between LED strip and Arduino. It should look that neat. It is fascinating to note that LED strip has two "GND" connections, presumably to favour the discipline of separating the power and data cables.
And there is another matter here, complicating things.
The foil on the LED strip is not particularly robust. Even with a 12 V strip where the voltage drop in the foil is not as critical as with a 5 V strip, you may have some problem with voltage drop along a 5 meter length at full white brightness drawing 7.5 Amps. If you propose to do that, it may be a good idea to run an additional power cable - 12 V and ground - along with the strip itself and not separated, from the connections at the "DIN" end to the far end to feed power back along the strip.
The power supply Gnd also needs to connect to the Arduino Gnd.
12V from the supply will go to both 12V on the strip and Vin.
jamkoo:
Okey so now if i am not wrong, it should looks like this:
Well, no! 
You apparently have not understood my explanation in #9. It should look entirely different.
I am newbie in arduino and i dont know much about electricity.
Could you just draw me a scheme?
Currently i can only guess how to do it.
Does my schema is good?
Does every modular power suply has COM ?
You will have to check the markings on yours. The one I am using is a 5V/12V supply, and is marked COM like I showed.
Your pictures are too small, I cannot see how yours is labelled.
I dont already have that suply. There isnt any information about it in the discription. What type of power supply do you reccomend for that?
Could You answer me that is my schema good? I just want to know does will it work.
