An electrical question for the electrical Gurus

[Ron Boyd]

This is straight from the manual for a CTB16PCg1 DIY Kit:

Current Handling Capacity Light Duty Heat Sinks Regular Heat Sinks

Individual Channel 4 amps 8 amps

Individual Bank 8 amps 15 amps

Board 15 amps 30 amps

I have a CTB16PC, Gen 3 board, with the high power heat sinks (I assume this is the regular noted above). I plan on using 16 strings of LEDs per channel for 3 channels, and 1 string on each of the other dongles. My LED strings pull .04 amps per string. When tested with my Kill-a-Watt, 16 strings of white LEDs are pulling 0.63 amps and 68.7 watts when all are hooked together. By my calculations I should be pulling 2.27 amps across the entire board.

Does anyone see anything wrong in my thinking and calculations? Did I miss something?

I just want to make sure I won't burn up my controller. Up to this point, I've only used 2 or 3 strings at the most on a single dongle. This will be 16 on 1 dongle x 3.

I am planning a test with all strings and the board that will be used. I will plug the 3 channels with the 16 strings apiece, one string at a time and monitor the load with the Kill-a-watt as I'm doing it.

I just wanted to pick the brains of the electrical Gurus on here before I pull everything out and test my theory.

Any comments or suggestions are always welcomed.

Thanks,

Ron

[Don]

I have a CTB16PC, Gen 3 board, with the high power heat sinks (I assume this is the regular noted above). I plan on using 16 strings of LEDs per channel for 3 channels, and 1 string on each of the other dongles. My LED strings pull .04 amps per string. When tested with my Kill-a-Watt, 16 strings of white LEDs are pulling 0.63 amps and 68.7 watts when all are hooked together. By my calculations I should be pulling 2.27 amps across the entire board.

16 strings @ .04amps = 0.64amps * 3channels = 1.92amps

1 string @ .04amps = 0.04amps * 13channels = 0.52amps

Total of 2.44 amps for the entire board.

You'll be fine.

[Ron Boyd]

Thank you sir. That was the answer I was expecting. I Just wanted to pick someone's brain. Thanks for the quick response.

[Max-Paul]

If Clark Griswald had used all LEDs on his house. I would bet he could have controlled all it on just one controller.

[dougd]

I would like to see the display of a maxed out controller using only LED's. That would be an awesome display.

[Jack Stevens]

Yeah, you missed something.

The display load is so light that you may need to use snubbers to get the LEDs to shut off or dim properly!

Try it first, though; I think the Gen 3 boards fixed that issue.

[WilliamS]

I would like to see the display of a maxed out controller using only LED's. That would be an awesome display.

would be an intense 16 channels!

Make it happen.

[nmonkman]

My two palm trees on the left side currently each have 20 strings of LED C9's 25 count, and 10 strings of LED clear 300 count. That's 3500 lights on one channel. If I had 14 more Palm Trees I could have 56000 lights on 1 controller. Now, if I did that for all 18 controllers, there is the 1 million lights I am shooting for. I am only 13% of the way there now.

 

I see a lot of mention of snubbers here. I use 2 or 3 regular incandescent C9's on each channel. That works for me.