CMD16D

[Ponddude]

I just ordered a CMD16D board an am excited to add it. I do have a question about the power supply I will need for it. What did other people us for it this past year? LOR, are you planning on supplying a power supply for it in the future?

Greg

[-klb-]

If your load is higher than 12 volts, the card will use the power supply you supplied for the load to power the card. For example, I am considering an application using 16 strings of 6 incandescent bulbs out of a normal 100 (50ea) light mini set. This would work well using a typical "12V" power supply intended to allow you to use CB radios or similar off of household power. These supplies are often 13.8-14VDC. Since the voltage and current requirements for your power supply depend on your load, the power supply is left as an exercise to the user. If you happen to be controlling loads under 12VDC, they provide a power inlet connector, but I doubt it gets used often.

At the same time, I have an application for 20 channels of 48V, AC, or DC. Still have not made up my mind if I am going to do it as two DC cards and suitable power supply, or channels 1-8 off of three different AC cards fed by a step down transformer.

- Kevin

[Ponddude]

So now I am really confused...lol

What your telling me is it depends on the voltage that will be used? Do I need to add up what I will be connecting and then find a power supply that is suitable for it? Or do I need to just found what the highest output of power is from a device I am connecting and use that? I don't know why I am so lost at this, but I am...lol

HELP!

Greg

[grump010]

Ponddude,

Can you tell us what your going to use your CMD16D card for. I used a power supply from an LCD monitor that output 2.5 amps, but I didn't need much power as all I am driving is the MR16's from Wirekat's second order.

Cheers
Daryl B.

[-klb-]

It depends on the voltage and current requirements of your load. Ideally all your DC loads take the same voltage, though from what I remember, the DC cards allow 1-8 to be fed from one power supply, and 9-16 to be a different power supply, with a different voltage.

For example, let's look at my example of 16 strands of 6 standard incandescent minis. Each strand will draw 0.33A, and I want to plan for all of them to be on at once. 16*0.33A is about 5.5A, so a power supply of at least 5.5A output will work for this application..

- Kevin

[LightORamaDan]

The CMB16D an handle DC devices that run from couple volts to 60 volts. So if you are running 12 volt lights you would use a 12 volt supply. If you are using 5 volt lights / motors / relays ... (what ever you are controlling then you would use a 5 volt supply.

There are two banks on the controller (channels 1-8 and channels 9-16) You could put 5 volt lights on one bank and 12 volt lights on the other bank and you would then supply on bank with 5 volts and one bank with 12 volts.

So the supply voltage to the card depends on working voltage of the devices/lights/etc.. that you are controlling with the controller.

The on-board electronics is powered from right hand (channels 9-16) power input BUT the on-board electronics requires at least 12 volts to operate. So what if you need to run a 5 volt light bank from the card? The 5 volts will not provide sufficient voltage to run the card so in that case you have to supply voltage to the electronics using the barrel connector on the card. If the voltage is 12 volts or higher then there is no need to provide power to the electronics from the power barrel it will get its power from the power input of the right bank.

The user guide (on the support page) probably explains this clearer than I did.

Dan

[Ponddude]

Awesome...I get it now.

I was getting confused because I was thinking of volts, not amps. It basically is like figuring out the power requires for a regular board. Making sure you know the amps of what you are hooking up. So I plan on running a bunch of 12 volt solenoids and a bunch of MR16's. Those are all 12 volts, now I just need to make sure the amps are correct coming from the power supply. That is easy enough!

Thanks guys!!

Greg

[mmaness]

I'm guessing here, but if you're going to be running low voltage lights to the board, you could possibly use a power supply for low voltage lighting. Of course, the timer and/or photo cell would have to be disabled, but at least it should work.

[-klb-]

Be sure to check if the low voltage supply is AC, or DC. All of the low voltage landscape supplies I have dealt with are AC. If you have an AC landscape supply, you could probably add a full wave rectifier, and no filtration, and be OK, but the fact that this is all ripple probably implies the need for a separate power supply for the logic. If you were to add a filter capacitor, you would wind up with nearly 17 volts, and possibly blow the lights.

- Kevin

[mmaness]

-klb- wrote:

Be sure to check if the low voltage supply is AC, or DC. All of the low voltage landscape supplies I have dealt with are AC. If you have an AC landscape supply, you could probably add a full wave rectifier, and no filtration, and be OK, but the fact that this is all ripple probably implies the need for a separate power supply for the logic. If you were to add a filter capacitor, you would wind up with nearly 17 volts, and possibly blow the lights.

- Kevin

Good point! The ones I'm talking about are 12vdc, and they're available. Just make sure you're getting a 12vdc, and not some A/C value.

I'm not certain that the D/C ones are pure D/C. They might have a lot of ripple, etc, because they're only designed to power bulbs and not electronic equipment.

[jimpwa]

Would a 12 volt landscape lighting transformer be good for power for the dc controller

[Ponddude]

Just make sure that the transformer puts out DC voltage. A lot of the "standard" transformers that you get at Lowe's and HD are AC voltage. As long as it isn't AC, you should be ok.

Greg

[thebaronn]

WOW! I am totally lost now!

Some of us didnt go to college and need to be spoken to like a 5th....4th grader.

So I just received my CMB16D dealio in the mail.

When I wire it up, can I plug in a set of M5 LEDs from creativedisplays.com???

I bought and i think(hope hope) I will only need to use 2 or 3 channels on a costume that I will be wearing.

And I still have no clue what power supply to use.

At one point I thought I was going to create a power pack using rechargable batteries, but now........

Dude, I totally suck.

Eric

[zman]

thebaronn wrote:

WOW! I am totally lost now!

Some of us didnt go to college and need to be spoken to like a 5th....4th grader.

So I just received my CMB16D dealio in the mail.

When I wire it up, can I plug in a set of M5 LEDs from creativedisplays.com???

I bought and i think(hope hope) I will only need to use 2 or 3 channels on a costume that I will be wearing.

And I still have no clue what power supply to use.

At one point I thought I was going to create a power pack using rechargable batteries, but now........

Dude, I totally suck.

Eric

Most can power the CMB16D with and old PC power supply. You can find them anywhere if you don't have any sitting around your house. If you are only doing MR16's that are 12V only.

Eric, hopefully you are confused about the product we are talking about. You would not buy a CMB16D to power regular lights like the ones you got from Paul Sessel. This is a DC product this thread is talking about.

[thebaronn]

I am using LEDs from creative labs.

You just have to rewire them to work with a DC board but it is a real PITA.

But if you cannot find DC lights in the specific color you need running off DC then you gotta do what you gotta do.



Eric

[thebaronn]

OK, so I gave up rewireing LEDs.

But I am using battery operated LEDs from creative displays.

Now i am going to use A LOT of them.

Each strand is 4.5V (i think) but I want to plug more than one strand into each bank.

So lets say I have 2 strands in channel 1 on the CMD16D at 4.5V each. DOes that mean it is now 9V??

I still dont get it.

even more, is it cummulative for each channel? Lets say channels 1-8 each have a 4.5V strand of LEDs. Does that mean i need a power supply of 36V (4.5X8)??

Explain to me like you would a 5 year old and maybe i will understand!

Thank you

Eric

[Ponddude]

Alright, lets start with at the top.

If each strand pulls 4.5 volts, then no matter how many strands you plug into a channel, the voltage will stay the same. Lets think about a standard outlet in your house. Each outlet has 110 volts (or 120). In that outlet you can plug in a clock, a toaster and a tv, and all those things still use 110 volts. You don't get 330 volts because you have 3 things plugged in.

Now, what will start to add up are the watts. I am not sure what stringers you are using or how many watts they pull, but that is what will start to add up.

Now, when you purchase a power supply you will need to add up the watts. Lets say for argument sack that each stringer pulls 1 watt. Now lets say that you are plugging in 32 stringers into the CMD16D. That is 32 watts. (32 stringers x 1 watt each)

Now, you are only drawing 4.5 volts, which is all the power supply should put out. That means that there is not enough power to power the electronics on the CMD16D. You will need a wall wart to plug into the board to power it.

Again, there thing here to remember is that the stringers and your power supply only should be 4.5 volts. Now all you need to do is figure out the wattage for the stringer and then we can work from there.

Does this help?

[thebaronn]

That was awesome!

Now it looks like I am going to use 20 strings of (4.5V 20 Light LED strings) and it says they last for 18 hours.

I have no clue on how to calculate wattage. But on the PC forum it says that 60-70ct LEDS (m5) use 2.6W....

So maybe 17 1/3 watts for the 20 strings??

No clue.

Sorry

Eric

[Ponddude]

Eric...

Can you post the link to the page where you got the lights? I will look into it for you.

[thebaronn]

Okay, so the ones from creative displays are here:

http://www.creativedisplays.com/siteresources/modules/webstore/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=576

And then Im buying these from ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=150287801586

only because creative displays only has white wire

Thank you so much

Eric