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Hi guys,

I recently bought a new place, and it has some old fashioned dado rail around the living room and the first thought that came into my head was RGB LED strips in the dado rail going around the entire room.

I've measured the total LED strip length being approx 1306cm.
Also the approx total cable length from a PSU in the attic is 1919cm (assuming we're using a parallel circuit to inject power into the LEDs along various points in the run).

I'd like to use RGBW, but RGB is fine. I'd like to be able to do mixes of colours around the wall too.


What I need to understand is:
What PSU do I need to power the LEDs?
What cable do I need to carry that power?
Will I be able to use a controller?
Will I be able to set lighting zones?


Any help is greatly appreciated, if you need to ask anything to further understand what I'm after please ask.
 
13 metres of strip would be better split across multiple drivers, signal repeater/slave controller type units can be used to run led strips from different drivers but from the same controller.

19 metres from the driver to the strip will be a problem, you need to keep this distance as short as possible due to voltage drop being a big issue at low voltage. Using 24V strip and drivers would reduce the problem a bit, but you will still end up running a very large cable to each strip.
 
13 metres of strip would be better split across multiple drivers, signal repeater/slave controller type units can be used to run led strips from different drivers but from the same controller.

19 metres from the driver to the strip will be a problem, you need to keep this distance as short as possible due to voltage drop being a big issue at low voltage. Using 24V strip and drivers would reduce the problem a bit, but you will still end up running a very large cable to each strip.

Thanks for the reply.

The cable run was assuming a single driver and the cable would run 1 metre down the wall then along side the LED strips all the way with the odd window and door creating a gap in the LEDs.

If I had an LED strip that was 19.2W per metre then that would be about 250.75W total. At 24V that would be 10.5A.
So I'd need a cable that is maybe 1.25mm per core?
 
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Ok so looks like voltage drop across 19m with 24V/10A will be about 5V at the end. So it might not be noticeable unless I turn the entire strip up bright.

Might be difficult to power the strip from both ends due to access but I'll take a look and see what I can come up with. A drop of 2.5V would be acceptable to me.
 
F12-RGBWW-24-60-65-FP RGBW LED Flexi Strip - PowerLed - https://www.powerled.uk.com/product/rgbw-led-flexi-strip/f12-rgbww-24-60-65-fp-rgbw-led-flexi-strip/

The above is the RGBW strip i have been using, the white is warm white at 3000K nice for a domestic setting.

All the bump is there for design, i think its about 11.5w/m,

You mentioned different colours around the room, thats OK but you will need a controller per "segment" that you want to control differently. PSU's up to you if you are putting the segments in zones anyway, Limits are: Only Power 5M of strip from the strip connectors, if you need 6M , them 1M will need a parallel cable from PSU.
Each zone / segment you create needs a controller. PSU needs to easily cover the w/m of the strip and be correct voltage.
 
Won't these LED strips be pretty much at eye height when you're sat down? Dado rail won't provide anything to hide them behind so you'll end up seeing the individual LEDs rather than a 'wash' on the wall. It feels like a lot of effort and expense for something that might not look that great in practice.
 
F12-RGBWW-24-60-65-FP RGBW LED Flexi Strip - PowerLed - https://www.powerled.uk.com/product/rgbw-led-flexi-strip/f12-rgbww-24-60-65-fp-rgbw-led-flexi-strip/

The above is the RGBW strip i have been using, the white is warm white at 3000K nice for a domestic setting.

All the bump is there for design, i think its about 11.5w/m,

You mentioned different colours around the room, thats OK but you will need a controller per "segment" that you want to control differently. PSU's up to you if you are putting the segments in zones anyway, Limits are: Only Power 5M of strip from the strip connectors, if you need 6M , them 1M will need a parallel cable from PSU.
Each zone / segment you create needs a controller. PSU needs to easily cover the w/m of the strip and be correct voltage.

Thanks for the info, I'll check out the link.


Won't these LED strips be pretty much at eye height when you're sat down? Dado rail won't provide anything to hide them behind so you'll end up seeing the individual LEDs rather than a 'wash' on the wall. It feels like a lot of effort and expense for something that might not look that great in practice.

It's 1m up the wall. I honestly am not sure, I would be putting them in an aluminium extrusion with plastic on top to defuse the light.
 
Sounds like the extrusion and diffuser will do the job. Perhaps it's worth getting a short section to make sure you get the effect you're after?

Yes I think that would be a great idea before I begin spending a LOT of money on the full lighting feature.

I'd imagine it would look almost like a light bar, sort of neon-ish.
 
Ok so looks like voltage drop across 19m with 24V/10A will be about 5V at the end. So it might not be noticeable unless I turn the entire strip up bright.

Might be difficult to power the strip from both ends due to access but I'll take a look and see what I can come up with. A drop of 2.5V would be acceptable to me.

It will be very noticeable as the LEDs won't illuminate when the voltage drops too low.
Also trying to pass 10A through the LED strip itself will likely melt the strip.

You need to feed this in sections, if installing it on all four walls of a square room I would look to put each wall on a seperate feed cable.
 
It will be very noticeable as the LEDs won't illuminate when the voltage drops too low.
Also trying to pass 10A through the LED strip itself will likely melt the strip.

You need to feed this in sections, if installing it on all four walls of a square room I would look to put each wall on a seperate feed cable.

Yes it will be fed in sections because I'll be having the 5 core power cable running along side the LED strips to put power into it at set intervals, say like every 2.5m or 5m.
I think some of the strips I've looked at say only power 5m in series.
 

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