powering 5050 LED strips

[basementcalling]

I've got bunches of these strips and power supplies. Most of the commercial supplies made for them are switching type (no transformer), so there won't be much power waste if they're over-capacity.

I'd recommend just getting a bunch of the cheap Chinese supplies made for the strips. Nice thing is they come with the proper connectors, so it becomes plug-and-play.

This strip simply ends with a red and black lead exiting the strip. The strip I addd to my chalk board tray at work had mini plugs that matched the included power supply.

Thanks for the suggestions and information.

[DKS]

This strip simply ends with a red and black lead exiting the strip.

Some of the power supplies include screw-on connectors for plain wires.

[Chris333]

I have 3 of the same strips and I have no idea whatsoever how to power them. They light up when I use a 200ma power supply. My main problem is trying to figure out how much power they use in watts. If they use more watts than what I already have then it really doesn't matter that they are LEDs. (wanted to use under my kitchen cabinets)

I just tried a light meter app on my phone and got 10000lx when laying on my layout, but it seems like it was either 100, 1000, or 10000 while I was moving the phone around so doubt it was accurate.

[Big4Man]

I use an old 430w ATX power supply. Feeds all 10 of my strings with no issue.

+1

You should be able to find these on the cheap at a local computer repair shop. I have 5- strings set up through a standard residential light switch using 12 GA wires feeding the secondary voltage to the array in two spots that are split equally.

[peteski]

I've got bunches of these strips and power supplies. Most of the commercial supplies made for them are switching type (no transformer), so there won't be much power waste if they're over-capacity.

There I go not being specific enough. What I was saying is that the large capacity power supply was being "wasted" by only utilizing fraction of its capacity, not that a power was being needlessly used up.

What you mentioned (that the power consumed on the primary side's is proportional to the output power consumed by the load on the output) is true even for the older analog transformer-based supplies.  While those older power supplies were less efficient then the switching-type supplies, they did not consume full power even with s small load.

Also to split hairs, even the switching type supplies still use a transformer, but it is a totally different transformer, used in a different way than in the old style analog supplies. 

[DKS]

Also to split hairs, even the switching type supplies still use a transformer, but it is a totally different transformer, used in a different way than in the old style analog supplies.

I knew that.

[peteski]

I have 3 of the same strips and I have no idea whatsoever how to power them. They light up when I use a 200ma power supply. My main problem is trying to figure out how much power they use in watts. If they use more watts than what I already have then it really doesn't matter that they are LEDs. (wanted to use under my kitchen cabinets)

I'm not surprised that they were glowing, even at 200mA.   Did you measure both the current and the voltage to be sure that it was 200mA and 12V?  It might be possible that you were overloading the power supply which resulted ion less than 12V being delivered to the LEDs. That would result in reduced brightness.  Basically, the LEDs were not working on full power.

To truly measure the brightness and power consumption you really need a power supply which is capable of providing 12V at a current greater than what the LEDs will need.  That way you can take accurate measurements of the current consumption.

As far as measuring light output, that is another story altogether.    Usually light output is measured at some predefined specific distance and angle from the light source. Of course moving the meter around will change the reading.

[peteski]

I knew that.

I knew that you knew.