RGB & CMB24D

[James Hill]

Hello everyone,

 

Sorry I don't have the math ability but I am curious if 'what I want to do', can be done. I don't want to overload my control card so I drew up my proposal for the techies to help me out. I was planning on having the power supply and the control card hidden in the small knee attic on the left side of the house and feed the connecting wires through an access point in the sofit pan. That said the distance from the controller to the actual LEDs would be minimal. I know the runs are long (24ft) but by having the feed point at a spot where I feed one whole length of dumb LEDs and also feed a shorter lenght to span the whole distance, colour should be fine. I am concerned with the load on the card. I have split the loads almost evenly between both banks on the CMB24D, but can you see a problem with my plan? What am I not thinking of? Am I running the card at max? Fear of burning up the card!

 

Also when daisy chaining controllers...can you/ is there...a way to split the outgoing... or Y-connector clip? or does the feed need to be in a straight line? I was thinking if possible have my 16 ch. contoller split to connect to 2 different controllers. This would eliminate back tracking of cat cable. If not I can always move the computer upstairs and feed to the CMB24D then outside to my two 16ch. controllers.

Any help ALWAYS appreciated.

Thank in advance,

 

James Hill

[Darryl Lambert]

Your well under the max capacity of the CMB24D, It can handle 30A per side & 4A per channel.

So take your longest run 24 feet which is 7.3152 meters x 7.2 watts per meter for white = 52.66944 watts total

Using the formula I=P/E you get 52.66944watts/12volts=4.38912A. So you will be using 4.38912A for the white color on this strip which is actually 3 channels. It works out to 1.46304A per channel.

I quickly added the total of all your strips & it comes out to around 331 watts. This is under the max capacity of your 350W power suppy but it is a good practise not to load these cheap supplies to more than 80 percent of there rated total. So you might want to at least go up to a 400W supply or run 2-250W supplies, one for each side of the controller.

As for your "y" question you cannot "y" the cat5 from 1 controller to another, but you could get this . It has 2 cat5 connections so you can "y" from the computer & have one goto your attic & the other to your yard.

[CLD Kevin]

The info Darrel is right on based off the info provided, but want to add to him comments.

 

Where did you get the info for 7.2watts per meter? Was this the info the manufacture or supplier provided? The reason I ask is because a lot of the newer dumb strips or at least the ones I have physically touched are way less than that. LOR dumb strip is 4w/m or 20watts total for the 5m strip. The ones I carry in my store (non-LOR) are also 20w for a 5 meter strip. This is based off testing with a meter.  So I would test your strips to verify actual load.

 

 

So based of mine/LOR strips….these are my calculations:

 

151ft or 46meters x 4watts = 184watts. Just about 50% of the 30A/360W power supply you have. You could add several more strips to the same power supply if you wanted. Now this is no fault to Darryl, he based his calculation on what you provided. But I would test the strips yourself to verify.

 

Also remember to take into consideration voltage drop with cable size and distance. Your runs don’t look far if you place the controller in central location so you should be okay. You can check with standard calculation formula or better with a meter. I prefer the meter….it’s pretty much a guarantee. 

Edited April 9, 2015 by CLD Kevin

[James Hill]

Great Day Everyone...

 

I really appreciate your responses. I find it comforting knowing there is this forum for everyone to access. Pro's and Techies out there....."Thank You."

I will check with a meter on those strips...but the 7.2w was what the supplier's data sheet stated (Alibaba).

 

James Hill

[EmmienLightFan]

Chinese information and specs can be wrong, but

 

Mine claim to be 36, which for 5m would make 7.2/meter correct.

 

 

 

I measured them at 32 all white.

[James Hill]

Hello everyone,

 

Darryl L (or anyone else), correct me if I am wrong....

 

I measured one roll of my dumb rgb 50/50 light strip and it is reading 1.97Amps per strip (full white) and my power supply is measuring 12.28Volts output.

 

If I plug in the numbers...1.97 x 12.28 = 24.19 Watts.....if I us 10 strips for example...I should be drawing 241.9 Watts

If my power supply is 360 Watts....I would be running it at 67% (241.9/360), correct?

 

Also, if the measurement is 1.97Amps per strip...I can divide by 3 and get 0.656Amps per channel? Well below the control card maximums!

Also, if the Watts are 24.19...if I divide by 5 (5 meters per strip) I would get 4.83w/meter? Not the 7.2w/meter as stated in the specs.

 

I hope I did this right. Again thank you all for your experience.

[Little_b]

On my Dumb RGB Strips each color had a different amp value, but still well below the channel amp max.  I even have one run that is almost 3 strips long and no problems.