Jump to content
Light-O-Rama Forums

350 WATT 12VDC POWER SUPPLY


Vince4xmas

Recommended Posts

I am looking to combine a Pixie8 and a Pixie16 in one enclosure with one 350w 12vdc power supply.

My total pixel count is 1966 running at 50% intensity.

Looking at some others information, they state the maximum pixels for a 350w 12vdc power supply is 1051 pixels.

Can I do this or do I need 2 power supplies?

Thanks

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly I would just use two power supplies instead of pushing the limts of one. Power supplies are pretty cheap and I would prefer the bigger overhead.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Firstly, it's going to depend on your pixels. Some pixels are rated at about 0.6W per pixel and some at about 0.3W per pixel. LOR pixels seem to be the lower Wattage variety.

I agree with MrP though about dual supplies. If you don't have room in the case there are outdoor rated supplies which can be strapped to the outside. 

1966 0.6 W pixels at 12V at 100 percent is almost 100A and 0.3W pixels will be half that. Your 350W supply is about 30A.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No way!  ALWAYS calculate power consumption at full white - even though we SELDOM really bring large amounts of pixels to full white.  You also do not want to plan on a power supply running at 100% load (especially the cheap Chinese ones).

Now with that said, a note about setting the max on the pixels to something lower than 100% (as you stated, you will run 50%).  Yes, that buys you some capacity, but it's not quite double.  I measured this on several strings of different types and wrote it up in this post:  http://falconchristmas.com/forum/index.php/topic,12633.msg109713.html#msg109713  (yea, it's on another forum that may require you to have an account).

Also note that if you happen to get a pixel failure that results in the remainder of that string going to 100% white, that is 100% of 100%, not 100% of the 50% that you set.  Not as big of an issue if you have fairly short strings (except maybe blowing fuses), but can be a lot of current draw if you have a string of 500 pixels that just went 100% white.

My standard for pixels at 100% is 400 pixels at 12 volts or a little under 1000 pixels at 5 volts for the common 350 watt power supplies (one of the reasons that I mostly use 5 volt pixels).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a CG enclosure with 2 @ CMB24 and a Pixie 4 . All Bullet strings (50 count) draw 3Amps+

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XssqectruJzV7RgB6YgUAjyPWDy9K_IY/view?usp=sharing

I use 2@ 12V 400w external that HC used to sell :( . Each drives a CMB24 (both banks), 1 of those also powers the Pixie4 (I can grow another Pixie4 or swap it for a pixie8 with each bank getting power fom a differen PSU)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z-8gejwrCQw2z0Ky2lRL2UnlVwEWJA6z/view?usp=sharing

I will also second K6CCC: Size for 100% white (skip the derate if you must)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Just seeing this my friend. I have a pixie16 and pixie8 in one enclosure and used 2 - 750w psu's. The problem was the enclosure cost almost as much as everything else combined. It was for my first 12X24 matrix and my original ccr tree I built for Beta testing the pixie16.

From that time in 2017 I have always used 2 psu's for all 2 bank controllers. I then started mounting my psu's on edge and bridged together to save room for two controller pcb's. 

JR

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • The topic was locked
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...