dburson Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 New to LOR...Purchased an Enttec USB dongle,and a couple of $7 DMX controllers to operate my RGB 5050 cable.I have searched and searched, but cant find out how to/whats the best way to power the dmx controllers..I've seen youtube videos of using cat5 cable, but no "how to's" to set up the cable.. or what to use for a power supply.I am hoping to be able to daisy chain my controllers, but worried about powering it.Anyone with experience/knowledge to help point me in the right direction please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bretk Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Go to holidaycoro.com but a power supply from David, look at his how to videos. Download his rgb megaballs assembly manual. It will show you how. To do this all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdeditch Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Heres another good page with a video at the bottomhttp://www.lightuplawrence.net/Home/how-to-1/rgb-dmx-wiring Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bretk Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 bdeditch wrote:Heres another good page with a video at the bottomhttp://www.lightuplawrence.net/Home/how-to-1/rgb-dmx-wiring+1. Forgot about that one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dburson Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Thank you for the video's they will come in handy.. Always good to put what you read with a video on how to do it right.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdeditch Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 dburson wrote: Thank you for the video's they will come in handy.. Always good to put what you read with a video on how to do it right..Just remember that you will have to figure out how much your string is going to use at full power (all White). What I have been told that is the complete whiute takes the most power so if all of your RGB Strips are going to be on all white, you will have have enough power to run them all. I heard of some using power control on each string. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l0chte Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Is it possible to use 1 power supply to power several 5m strips at once? I can't justify DMX over LOR if I have to have a separate power supplies everywhere.ThanksEric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bretk Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Yes, just fuse your branch supplies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Young Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 bretk wrote: Yes, just fuse your branch supplies.. and as long as the total amperage your supply delivers more than covers all of the ribbons you are planning to power with those separate feeds. I recommend a supply with 20% more capacity than you calculate you need.Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bretk Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Greg Young wrote: .. and as long as the total amperage your supply delivers more than covers all of the ribbons you are planning to power with those separate feeds. I recommend a supply with 20% more capacity than you calculate you need.Greg+1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l0chte Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 bretk wrote:Yes, just fuse your branch suppliesI think I know what your talking about but does anyone have a picture? I'm a visual learner....Also, anyone have the links for the cheap dmx controllers they use? I think I'm just going to go with holiday coro unless someone else has a better option.Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CLD Kevin Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Additional info....There is a limit of how many RGB ribbon or RGB strings you want to use in series if you using the same power supply. Me personally, I wouldn't use more than (2) 5m strips or more than 100ct strings (nodes). Best advised...check amp load by adding a multi-meter in the loop. For me, ALL-ON I was getting 1.75A DC for (1) 5M strip and the same for a 50ct string. Double that and I was getting 3.5A DC. I suggest not going beyound that otherwise you may overdrive the strip/strings. For this example, I would use a 5A power supply.Now is is possible to use more than 2 strips and 100ct strings? Maybe, but I didnt want to chance it nor did I test it. Although when I first starting geting into the RGB world, I did connect (2) 100ct strings in series and one of the 100ct string wires (I cant remeber which) was hot to the touch when all-on for about 1 minute. After that, I decided to only use max 100ct.I thought 100ct isnt very much, but first they are super bright...10X brigher than incans. Second, being 3 color strings, it like having a 300ct...and third, if 100ct isnt enough (as it wasnt for me), I ran a single high power line and split it right at the location so I didnt run the strings in series...like having several branches. Just make sure you have enough juice.Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l0chte Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Cracker wrote:Additional info....There is a limit of how many RGB ribbon or RGB strings you want to use in series if you using the same power supply. Me personally, I wouldn't use more than (2) 5m strips or more than 100ct strings (nodes). Best advised...check amp load by adding a multi-meter in the loop. For me, ALL-ON I was getting 1.75A DC for (1) 5M strip and the same for a 50ct string. Double that and I was getting 3.5A DC. I suggest not going beyound that otherwise you may overdrive the strip/strings. For this example, I would use a 5A power supply.Now is is possible to use more than 2 strips and 100ct strings? Maybe, but I didnt want to chance it nor did I test it. Although when I first starting geting into the RGB world, I did connect (2) 100ct strings in series and one of the 100ct string wires (I cant remeber which) was hot to the touch when all-on for about 1 minute. After that, I decided to only use max 100ct.I thought 100ct isnt very much, but first they are super bright...10X brigher than incans. Second, being 3 color strings, it like having a 300ct...and third, if 100ct isnt enough (as it wasnt for me), I ran a single high power line and split it right at the location so I didnt run the strings in series...like having several branches. Just make sure you have enough juice.KevinWould it hurt to have 20amps hooked up to one of the small 8$ dmx controllers? as long as the cable can handle the 3 amps draw to the rgb 5050 5m strip It should work and only draw what it needs right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenL_MCSE Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 No it won't hurt. If my calculations are correct this 20 amp power supply is 240 watts. If you already have that power supply, you can use it. But it is overkill. You should save your money and buy one that matches the RGB strip.You should do a quick wiki and web search on volts, amps and watts. How they all work together. Most of the dmx boards I see have 1 amp per channel max. At 12 volts a 1 amp circuit is 12 watts. Most of those RGB flexible strips that have hit the market draw 36 watts total; which is 1 amp per color/channel at 12v. Thus the power supply you should buy is 12v 50watts 5 amps.By the way, LOR DC boards control those strips real nice! No DMX neeeded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l0chte Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 KenL_MCSE wrote:No it won't hurt. If my calculations are correct this 20 amp power supply is 240 watts. If you already have that power supply, you can use it. But it is overkill. You should save your money and buy one that matches the RGB strip.You should do a quick wiki and web search on volts, amps and watts. How they all work together. Most of the dmx boards I see have 1 amp per channel max. At 12 volts a 1 amp circuit is 12 watts. Most of those RGB flexible strips that have hit the market draw 36 watts total; which is 1 amp per color/channel at 12v. Thus the power supply you should buy is 12v 50watts 5 amps.By the way, LOR DC boards control those strips real nice! No DMX neeeded.I've heard fuses mentioned. Do you know why?Thanks, I've learned so much here about dmx in the last 2 weeks. I made an excelsheet with the cost of dmx vs lor and it will be around $40 cheaper to go dmx for this year and over a $100 cheaper next year. I will of course still be using the amazing LOR software!Thanks again. Everyone (mostly ;p) here is awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CLD Kevin Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 l0chte wrote:I've heard fuses mentioned. Do you know why?Thanks, I've learned so much here about dmx in the last 2 weeks. I made an excelsheet with the cost of dmx vs lor and it will be around $40 cheaper to go dmx for this year and over a $100 cheaper next year. I will of course still be using the amazing LOR software!Thanks again. Everyone (mostly ;p) here is awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CLD Kevin Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 What up with the forum? It wont let me edit?Anyways, what fuses are you referring to? I dont see anything mentioned in this post?As for the 20A...yeah what Ken said. Way overkill, but not going to hurt. But if all you were running is 1 strip, then should have went for the 36w or 45W power supply. But since you already have it, you can add to it.What type of wire is important too. Many like using cat 5 (like me). Its cheap and you can put power and DMX signal on it. Now its okay to use the cat5 cable to power the 1 strip, but dont use more than that. Say if you plan to use 4 strips with your 20A, which is more than enough power (I powered 8 strips off 1 20A). You CANT use the same cat5 cable to power all 4. You either need to branch out to each strip or use a single heavy gauge wire and split off your power leads. But this would mean you need a seperate cable for the DMX signal. And you cant just use a heavy 4 gauge wire. DMX required something like 100ohm cable and just using something like 18AWG 4-wire cable wont work....for DMX that is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l0chte Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Cracker wrote:What up with the forum? It wont let me edit?(Theory) They disabled it because the email goes out to people with the OP and if you change it Dan can't see what people really said.Cracker wrote:Anyways, what fuses are you referring to? I dont see anything mentioned in this post?Here:Greg Young wrote:bretk wrote: Yes, just fuse your branch supplies.. and as long as the total amperage your supply delivers more than covers all of the ribbons you are planning to power with those separate feeds. I recommend a supply with 20% more capacity than you calculate you need.GregCracker wrote:As for the 20A...yeah what Ken said. Way overkill, but not going to hurt. But if all you were running is 1 strip, then should have went for the 36w or 45W power supply. But since you already have it, you can add to it.I was hoping to run 4-5 strips off of it.Cracker wrote:What type of wire is important too. Many like using cat 5 (like me). Its cheap and you can put power and DMX signal on it. Now its okay to use the cat5 cable to power the 1 strip, but dont use more than that. Say if you plan to use 4 strips with your 20A, which is more than enough power (I powered 8 strips off 1 20A). You CANT use the same cat5 cable to power all 4. You either need to branch out to each strip or use a single heavy gauge wire and split off your power leads. But this would mean you need a seperate cable for the DMX signal. And you cant just use a heavy 4 gauge wire. DMX required something like 100ohm cable and just using something like 18AWG 4-wire cable wont work....for DMX that is.That confirms my plan on running dmx jumping from 1 controller to another and running 4-5 different cat5 cables to each controller for power (doubling up a few of the input and output pairs for a better current flow)Thanks everyone, I hope to buy some rgb stuff to get started in the next few weeks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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