Please excuse the diagram I made it quick, hope its easy to follow. The project I am wanting to do involves having ambient lighting behind my TV using led strips and led strips around my bed. The TV sits on my desk, this is where I am wanting to have my raspberry pi and arduino. On my desk i will have some sort of power source powering the led strip behind my TV and a data cable from the led strip to my arduino. For the led strips around my bed I am planning on having another power supply for that strip. My question is, how long can the data cable and ground wire from the led strips on my bed be, is it too far of a distance by looking at the diagram? Also how much power would each power supply need to power the led strips. Any help would be appreciated thanks
bad choice of color but Yellow = power supply
@sandro54321, please do not cross-post. Other thread removed.
There is a specification somewhere. Probably in the datasheet for your LEDs. It is dependent on a lot of factors like the capacitance per meter of the wire you choose.
From memory, 6m should be OK. If you have trouble, cut one LED from the strip and put it halfway on the wire. Every WS2182 is a repeater station.
thanks for the reply, I am very new to this so sorry if i'm asking stupid questions but would i be able to use one power supply for the whole setup? If i could would it be a 10v power supply or a 5v one? or would you recomend using 2 power supplies like in the diagram
5V supply.
LED strips can use a lot of power. You have about 200 LEDs there, so you could use up to 12A with them all on white. An 8A supply would be sufficient if you don't use max white.
The wire inside the strip cannot carry that current by itself. Wire the power supplies to both ends of each strip.
290 cm = 174 LEDs
356 cm = 213 LEDs
Total almost 400 LEDs total, that's 20A at full brightness.
You'll need more than power to the ends. A power connection to your strips every 1-1.5 meters so would be a good idea. So you basically wire a big fat power wire (2x2.5mm2 sounds good to me, that's readily available in your local electric shop) in parallel to your strips.
You need 5V power, a single 20A one or a 12A and an 8A one. A bit more won't hurt, either. Make sure your power supply has sufficient ventilation because it will produce significant heat. An old ATX computer supply would probably work quite well.
If you power your Arduino from a separate power supply (which is probably a good idea for power stability there) make sure to connect the grounds together. Not the 5V wires.
