Hi there. I'm building a house and need some help with the LED lighting design. Lots of experience wiring things, some experience using LEDs (did a run of low voltage landscape lights at previous house.) But first time with an LED lighting design this extensive.
This house has a very open floor plan with ~12.5' ceilings and exposed trusses throughout (eleven trusses in total, spaced 4' on center and spanning 24'). Imagine a large rectangular room. Within that room is a bunch of open living space with kitchen, living room, etc, and then a few closed off rooms (bedrooms and bathrooms). Rendering is as follows:
My first thought was to do cove lighting along the sidewalls, perpendicular to the trusses. To test the concept, I ordered these strip lights and wired up two 4' bays, one with a single row and the other doubled up. Neither was really bright enough to get light into the center of the room, which is not surprising given it's 24' across.
Next I tried running an 8' string along the top of the bottom chord of one of the trusses. It looked great! The light reflected off the ceiling and spread out nicely. The ceiling as a satin finish so not really any glare. It was also surprisingly bright given it was only one 8' section of one truss. Here's a pic.
Okay so now I want to light the entire space in this method. Doing the entire length of each truss will be enough to light entire space. Probably even too bright given how bright my test strip was, but you can always dim it lower. I will run LEDs strips lights in aluminum channels with diffusers mounted to the top of the bottom chord of each truss (22 ft / 7m total length.) I'd like to wire them up to create 'zones' corresponding to the layout of the house:
Zone 1 - living space - 5 x 7m strips
Zone 2 - hall, bath, etc - 3 x 7m strips
Zone 3 - bedroom - 3 x 7m strips
I want one set of three switches with dimmers in the middle of the house, then each zone will have a second switch wired as a 3-way (just a switch, not a second dimmer). Also none of that wifi, wireless, home automation blah blah, just lights on switches.
I've located a supplier for 11 x 7m strips of warm white 3000k LEDs... 60 2835 LEDs/m, 24v, ~12w/m. They have lots of positive reviews and are reasonably priced.
I need some help figuring out the transformer/driver and dimmer/control setup. I figure I need three drivers minimum, one per zone, and potentially >1 per zone depending on wattage.
I understand one option is 'old school' line voltage triac type dimmer with compatible transformer. Based on my shopping so far most are in the ~100 watt / $100 range which would get quite expensive. Also seems like this technology is largely made to be compatible with existing house wiring/incandescent fixtures so perhaps not the most efficient way to control LEDs.
Another option looks to be 'new school' low voltage PWM or 0-10v control type dimmer, where a separate control signal tells the driver how to dim the lights. Downsides are you need to run a separate control circuit, but that's fine since I'm wiring everything new. Not sure if I could run the 1-10v control circuit from one dimmer two 1-n transformers in parallel, if I had to break up the zones based on wattage. These transformers seem much cheaper, however dimmers are perhaps more expensive.
Still much research to do, but appreciate any advice from folks who have undertaken such a project in the past.
Thanks in advance.
This house has a very open floor plan with ~12.5' ceilings and exposed trusses throughout (eleven trusses in total, spaced 4' on center and spanning 24'). Imagine a large rectangular room. Within that room is a bunch of open living space with kitchen, living room, etc, and then a few closed off rooms (bedrooms and bathrooms). Rendering is as follows:
My first thought was to do cove lighting along the sidewalls, perpendicular to the trusses. To test the concept, I ordered these strip lights and wired up two 4' bays, one with a single row and the other doubled up. Neither was really bright enough to get light into the center of the room, which is not surprising given it's 24' across.
Next I tried running an 8' string along the top of the bottom chord of one of the trusses. It looked great! The light reflected off the ceiling and spread out nicely. The ceiling as a satin finish so not really any glare. It was also surprisingly bright given it was only one 8' section of one truss. Here's a pic.
Okay so now I want to light the entire space in this method. Doing the entire length of each truss will be enough to light entire space. Probably even too bright given how bright my test strip was, but you can always dim it lower. I will run LEDs strips lights in aluminum channels with diffusers mounted to the top of the bottom chord of each truss (22 ft / 7m total length.) I'd like to wire them up to create 'zones' corresponding to the layout of the house:
Zone 1 - living space - 5 x 7m strips
Zone 2 - hall, bath, etc - 3 x 7m strips
Zone 3 - bedroom - 3 x 7m strips
I want one set of three switches with dimmers in the middle of the house, then each zone will have a second switch wired as a 3-way (just a switch, not a second dimmer). Also none of that wifi, wireless, home automation blah blah, just lights on switches.
I've located a supplier for 11 x 7m strips of warm white 3000k LEDs... 60 2835 LEDs/m, 24v, ~12w/m. They have lots of positive reviews and are reasonably priced.
I need some help figuring out the transformer/driver and dimmer/control setup. I figure I need three drivers minimum, one per zone, and potentially >1 per zone depending on wattage.
I understand one option is 'old school' line voltage triac type dimmer with compatible transformer. Based on my shopping so far most are in the ~100 watt / $100 range which would get quite expensive. Also seems like this technology is largely made to be compatible with existing house wiring/incandescent fixtures so perhaps not the most efficient way to control LEDs.
Another option looks to be 'new school' low voltage PWM or 0-10v control type dimmer, where a separate control signal tells the driver how to dim the lights. Downsides are you need to run a separate control circuit, but that's fine since I'm wiring everything new. Not sure if I could run the 1-10v control circuit from one dimmer two 1-n transformers in parallel, if I had to break up the zones based on wattage. These transformers seem much cheaper, however dimmers are perhaps more expensive.
Still much research to do, but appreciate any advice from folks who have undertaken such a project in the past.
Thanks in advance.
- TL;DR
- What is the best way to control (11) 7m LED strips lights broken up into three dimmable zones for a new house build?
