Supply to external LED striptape

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I'm looking at installing LED RGB striptape in a planter in my garden. I already have a 3 core SWA cable from my garage to the planter that was used for old halogen lights in the 90's. The tape I have been looking at has a 13A plug top, supplying the power supply, then that feeds a small unit that I presume is for the colour change. That then supplies the tape. It is this cable that I will have to cut, install the PSU and colour change unit in my garage and from the later supply the tape with the SWA. It is 1.5, possibly 2.5 and only 5m long so no issue with volt drop.
However will I have enough cores? I have seen tape with 2 cores (is that single colour?), 4 cores, even 6 cores. If it is 4 core, I was considering using the armouring for the negative as a last resort, but from what I've seen, the tape has a +12v supply then the others must be sunk down to 0v, so probably not an option.
Could I just use the +12v and 2 of the other cores to give limited colour option?
Perhaps I could leave the PSU in the garage and mount the colour change unit outside, possibly this will require fewer cores. It depends on the IP rating of the said unit.
Any advice would be welcome. Oh and installing another cable is out of the question. it is a block paved drive.
 
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I got a Lidi 2 meter smart LED tape, and it seems to have a power supply and then a controller, so likely possible to use a pair of cables to the controller then 6 wires after that.

I have not tested, but would expect 6 wires are red, green, blue, warm white, cold white and return.
 
Google DriBox, chuck the wallwart and controller in it, done. Use loads of them on outdoor installs over winter, they work
 
I would prefer to leave the 230v inside the garage, just taking the LV to the planter, but that's a good suggestion. Don't you need a line of sight for the controller to work from the remote control? Will it work if shut away inside an enclosure?
 
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Depends on the controller- if infrared then yes, line of sight only. If RF or WiFi it'll be fine (boxes are plastic)
 
I would prefer to leave the 230v inside the garage, just taking the LV to the planter, but that's a good suggestion. Don't you need a line of sight for the controller to work from the remote control? Will it work if shut away inside an enclosure?
But 230v is LV.
 
It seems USA is diffrent to rest of the world, and they call what we call extra low voltage low voltage. And as a result there are loads of extra low voltage items marked low voltage.

In the UK extra low voltage could be anything from 5 to 50 volt, but low voltage is normally 230 volt, so rather than calling 230 volt low voltage easier to simply call it 230 volt.
 
Are electricians not normal then?
Low and High in regular english are relative context-dependent terms.

The IEC and BSI codified a power distribution engineers idea of high and low voltage into their standards, but the IEC and BSI do not define the English language. As eric pointed out the Yanks codified something closer to a normal persons understanding of the term low voltage (not sure if and how they use the term high voltage).

Electricians are often in the habit of treating BS7671 as a bible, as if everything said in there is absolute truth rather than just the opinions of a particular standards body.
 

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