Complex LED Light Job

[BAGGIES1]

Hi all,
Looking for a bit of guidance on putting in LED strips into my front room however there are some caveats.
After our house extension last year we have a 5.2 x 5.1 m front room.

I would like to install:

• Colour changing LEDs
• Dimmable

Our Leccy has kindly left us a electric box (basic a blank plated double socket) with a 240v feed (driven by already installed living room switch) which also contains 4x extended thick wiring cables to opposite corners of the living room (2x to each corner). The box currently sits in an underneath kitchen cabinet and is fed through a wall to front living room where LEDs will be installed.

So i need:

• Transformer
• 4x 5m LED strip (5050 RGB 5M 300)

Some quick calcs tell me if each strip is power rated at 14.4watts/m then i need a transformer cable of circa 300w. (5m x 14.4 x 4 led strips = 288w)

Saw this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product...act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2JLI2ICAAZI28

Questions:

• Dimmable - Does this occur at the transformer or the LED strip itself or both?
• The transformer - As i will need a bigger one than normal (typ dims are 20cm x 11cm) it wont fit in the box provided by the Leccy - can you recommend a typical insulation box?
• If I buy a remote control strip light will I end up needing to operate each controller to change the colour for the whole room?
• Any better way of doing the whole job?

Id really appreciate any input on the above before i take the plunge. Any links to Amazon/Ebay or other would be great too as suggestions.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[BAGGIES1]

Some supporting pictures to illustrate, thanks.

living rooms feed from kitchen.

below electric box in kitchen cabinet. contains the living rooms feeds and a mains feed into a chocolate block for connecting a transformer.

kitchen and adjacent living room. the box is located is the cupbaord under the microwave and goes directly through wall into living area where i want to install leds.

 

[big-all]

you know its very big as in 8 1/2" x4 1/4"x 2"

 

[winston1]

LED strips require DC. Transformers are AC devices and are NOT suitable.

However that device you linked to is a DC power supply so it is OK. It is NOT a transformer. I note also it has a fan. Will the noise bother you? To dim the strips I assume you will require a variable output supply.

 

[omega015]

You can get these remote controls/controller for the strip lights in either RF, IR, wifi or wifi+IR. If its wifi I check the app can do groups and control all at once. If its IR then they should all change at the same time assuming the remote can see all the ir receivers. However if your going to be running some colour changing sequences etc... be aware that they probably will drift out of sequence.

btw your image links aren't working (or at least not for me)

 

[endecotp]

300W is an enormous amount of power for LED lighting. Are you sure that's right?

 

[omega015]

Just checked what power supply I have my 5050's on and its a 2a 12v adaptor (24w) and they don't seems to struggle, so I assume there's plenty of headroom with the 2a supply. I might get the meter out and measure the current draw on it.

 

[JohnW2]

300W is an enormous amount of power for LED lighting. Are you sure that's right?

Indeed. 300W would be pretty excessive even for incandescent lighting, and the amount of light from LEDs should be best part of an order of magnitude greater!

Kind Regards, John

 

[BAGGIES1]

Hi thanks for the feedback. The power rating is just based on a calculation from random website.
If anyone has a typical suggestion based on 4x 5m strips powered from typical dc supply i could use the guidance?

 

[JohnW2]

Hi thanks for the feedback. The power rating is just based on a calculation from random website. If anyone has a typical suggestion based on 4x 5m strips powered from typical dc supply i could use the guidance?

I have no experience of LED strips, so can't help you there - but hopefully someone can.

However, what I can tell you is that I am currently sitting in a room of roughly 5m x 5m which is more than adequately lit with a total of about 40W of LED lighting. If that were anything remotely like 288W, I imagine I would need some very dark sunglasses!

Kind Regards, John

 

[omega015]

I just measured the current on my 5050 RGB strips. On the white setting (this uses all the LEDS) I was drawing about 1.08amps on a 5m strip with 30 LEDs per meter.

 

[JohnW2]

I just measured the current on my 5050 RGB strips. On the white setting (this uses all the LEDS) I was drawing about 1.08amps on a 5m strip with 30 LEDs per meter.

That certainly sounds an awful lot more credible than the 6A suggested by the OP's calcs. With your figures, 4 strips would be around 52W total, which doesn't sound unreasonable for a 5m x 5m room (certainly far more credible than 288W!).

Kind Regards, John

 

[omega015]

@BAGGIES1 If you can fix those image links, we might be able to offer more suggestions/thoughts as to placement, cable runs, power supplies etc...

 

[BAGGIES1]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ornc7in0vv6kwhf/2017-01-18 18.06.20.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ayxogpf63zhir8y/2017-01-18 18.06.10.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/es0m40s67tcrm3a/2017-01-18 18.06.39.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o23vb4modal1ygc/2017-01-18 18.06.55.jpg?dl=0

hope that works

 

[Iggifer]

I (accidentally, believe me) looked directly at a 100w LED floodlight yesterday and I damn near got arc eye. 3 times that in a living room would be insane (it was 100 x 1w LED chips so essentially the same output)

That being said (also from a generic website) 14.4w/m tallies up for 60 LED/m of 5050 chips. That is over the top.

I assume it's just for mood/ambient lighting?

I have 2x2m strips attached to the underside of my bed, and tbh that's really the only light I use the majority of the time in my bedroom. Occasionally a bedside lamp for a bit more light but rarely the pendant. I've got 3528 at 60leds/m (I think) which is 48w/m and perfectly fine.

If it's for serious lighting the room lighting, then yea 5050 at 60LED/m will do the job. That's how the back of my van is lit and it's damn nice