LED Hooking up 12v LED strips and removing 120v transformer

[Jvades]

Hi all,

I converting a van to a camper and wanted lights for underneath the kitchen cabinet.

I purchased this led light strip for Home Depot (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commerc...-RGB-LED-Strip-Light-Kit-DT8800-16F/312590609). The first one I bought with USB connection just wasn't bright enough.

I checked the brightness of this led strip by plugging it into the inverter, and it was plenty bright. I also like that it comes with a remote.

My first question is whether connecting it to a 12v battery would at all change the brightness of the LEDs and my second question is where in the schematic I would cut out the existing wires and connect to a red/black from my battery (which runs through a Blue Sea Fuse Box and would then run to a dimmer switch (this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L3MT41G/?tag=cpf0b6-20). I know that the second box (transformer that plugs into the wall isn't necessary, but I wonder if the first one is (and is some kind of current driver or something)?
My second question is how I go from the red, black, green, and blue wires of the led strip to the black and a red wire from my battery (which will go through the dimmer switch first)?

I assume that the dimmer switch would be operable with this, since both would be 12v and that I could use both the remote and the actual dimmer switch, but will that actually work?

Thanks much!

James

 

[Lucien Nunes]

The dimmer and the remote control module probably won't work together. DC LED dimming works by duty-cycle control i.e. turning the LEDs on and off at a high frequency, with the brightness being a function of the fraction of time spent on vs. off. If you attempt to connect the remote module downstream of the dimmer, when the dimmer is at less than 100% it will be switching the electronics of the module on and off as well as the LEDs. Capacitors in the module might completely defeat the action of the dimmer by smoothing the pulses into a continuous current, or the module might get confused from being turned on and off thousands of times a second. You will probably have to choose one control method or the other.

The LED strips will work from the RV leisure battery but the brightness might be variable. The original transformer probably gives quite a stable 12V but the lesiure battery will range from 14.5V on charge, to 13.8V fully charged to 11V discharged. LEDs can be somewhat sensitive to variations in voltage.

The strip itself probably has markings on the solder connection points where the colored ribbon cable attaches. But probably you will find the black wire is positive (connects to red from your 12V panel) while the others represent the colors of LED they connect to, and will all be negatives (connect to black from your 12V panel.) But check for markings on the strip first.