Alcoves and LED strips

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I am fitting cabinets/shelving in my living room alcoves, four in total, which are going to have an LED strip channelled in the very top shelf. That is four LED strips.

Firstly I'm not familiar with LED strip configurations and the company doing the work have already included the strips/drivers in their plan. They are proposing a 12v system from hafele with proximity sensors.

http://www.hafele.co.uk/shop/p/loox-12v-led-2043-flexible-strip-light/96419/8171
http://www.hafele.co.uk/shop/p/loox-led-driver-constant-voltage-12v-black/81214/5884
http://www.hafele.co.uk/shop/p/loox-compatible-12v-capsens-proximity-sensor-switch/90777/8774

I will have my electrician channel cable to each top shelf, as there is a socket for every alcove that will be hidden inside the cabinetry at the bottom.

The thing is I don't know if this system is compatible or modifiable in a way I'd like. For example, we already decided not to run wires all the way to interconnect to the light switch because it involves lots of work and damage to decoration. I looked at wireless control, there are some interesting solutions on the web but not with this company. And also at what cost. The worst case scenario is to have to turn on/dim each one manually.

And last, the led strips seem to go down to 3000K temperature. For some people that is warm enough, but for me I'd be looking for the ultra warm 2600~2800K. Should I just swap the strips they will provide, I assume 12v with correct wattage will work?
 
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They are proposing a 12v system from hafele
I didn't see any prices on that website, but instinct tells me that that is going to be an expensive system.



I looked at wireless control, there are some interesting solutions on the web but not with this company.
Can you ask the furniture people to use a different one, or is Hafele the one they use, and that's it?

If you use their RGB strips then:

  1. You'll be able to control the colour you want at any particular time
  2. They do a wireless control which would manage all 4 strips together.


The worst case scenario is to have to turn on/dim each one manually.
There's nothing in the specs you posted about dimming.....


Should I just swap the strips they will provide, I assume 12v with correct wattage will work?
  1. It's probably a bog standard 3528 strip, so yes, although you'll need to fiddle about fitting their plug connectors, unless the one you swap to uses the same.
  2. If you do that then surely you'll lose any warranty which the installer is going to provide, you'll be throwing away the LEDs you've bought, so why use their system in the first place?
  3. Changing may not be easy, as I imagine they will use Hafele's recessed aluminium channel, and the glue on those self-adhesive strips is likely to be pretty stubborn, and you'd have to find a strip which would fit.
 
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Thanks for the points.

It looks like mainly for businesses so you need an account to see the pricing, but I have found them on other websites and they are not very expensive.

Indeed the above equipment does not include dimming, but they have another dimmer switch that works with this driver (which allows for dimming in the output from what it seems). But I have found nothing for wireless control...

I will check with them if they support other brands/suppliers in order to have warmer temperatures and/or perhaps a wireless system supported.
 
If you use their RGB strips then:

  1. You'll be able to control the colour you want at any particular time
  2. They do a wireless control which would manage all 4 strips together.

I wonder if that's wireless or infra-red.

Any recommendations for LED strips and also a wireless synch system?

Does it help that all sockets within the cabinets belong to the same ring? i.e something with powerline adapters...
 
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They say wireless - I'm sure they mean RF.

Do not have anything whatsoever to do with powerline networking - it's insecure, it's pants, and if the regulators ever get their act together it will be banned.
 
It states 85 lm per watt which is not bad, a LED tube to replace a fluorescent lamp is 100 lm per watt and 3W bulbs are around 83 lm per watt some of the stuff advertised on the internet is very poor down to 50 lm per watt or even lower looks the same but in real terms very different. 24 Watt is same as 5 foot fluorescent tube replacement in my kitchen there are two tubes one in original kitchen and one in extension which is ample. However the driver you link to is 15W and the strip is 24W so it would need more than one driver.

Powerline adapters should be banned they causes all sorts of problems. I am sure in the end they will be banned.

As to dimming LED's the problem is you don't get the ambulance as colour does not alter. To dim an LED means using resistors instead of drivers to limit the current to the LED, this in turn means they use more power than a non dimming unit. So in general LED lamps able to dim use more power per lumen. Better to have multi-switches so you can select how many LED's in circuit. It is the same for strip lights where you can change colour, in order to alter colour has to be simple resistor not a proper driver so power used per lumen is much higher. As I said 85 lm per watt is quite good. Also means they are quite cool running.

On another post we saw how some LED clips on a strip like the one you have was taking nearly 3 times the power the chips required in order to have colour changing and dimming. It was noted nothing was given as to lumen per watt likely worse than a tungsten bulb. You have to be very careful selecting LED lighting.
 
Just living down to my moniker: I reckon Eric means "ambience" rather than "ambulance".

Cheers, Graham
 
Pulse Width Modulation, or PWM is really the same as switch mode just a different name and it means using LED's as raw devices which are current dependent so having 12 LED's with a 320 mA PWM power supply is clearly the best option. With a little smoothing and altering the mark/space ratio you can run LED's very efficiently.

However once you drop from 48 volt to 12 volt that means 3 LED's per regulator instead of 12 so needs 4 times the number of regulators so costs go up. Not sure why 48 volt seems to be a standard since smooth DC could be 75 volt, but with colour changing as well you would need three regulators per chip so even more expensive to use PWM regulators.

Built into a package nothing to stop using 200 volt so 48 LED's per regulator at around 1W per LED that's a 48W unit so in theroy a replacement fluorescent tube using LED's would be cheap to make. However as I found that was not the case £17.09 for a 5 foot tube seems rather high, may be down to quantity made?

But use a simple (expensive to run) resistor to control current and these units drop in price, and it is simple by just altering voltage to dim or colour change it just needs around 3 times the power. As long as retailers can get away without labelling so no A+ or 100 lumen per watt then they can sell these units to people would don't realise what they are buying. Easy way is use the internet, it seems all the label rules can be ignored if based outside EU and using internet!
 
1. If I went with the option provided by them, I could have all switches independent with a dimmer switch and separate driver. A bit of a waste but can't think of a better way.
http://www.hafele.co.uk/shop/p/loox-switches/loox-dimmer-touch-free/89460/8777

This is an expensive poor man's (irony) option where none of the strips will have the exact same intensity as the others.

2. Or I could channel wire around the chimneys/wall and use extensions to connect all four to a single driver (supports 6 strips up to 60W) with a single surface mounted dimmer switch - supports up to 75W.

3. Any other systems out there that could make this work wirelessly and within reasonable cost? I will still have to pay for four drivers above, each controlling only a single strip so it might be worth considering alternatives?
 
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