RGBW dimmer and Dynamic White Led

[Guest roen2000]

Hi,

I am very new to Fibaro but has started in a small scale and is now moving into the kitchen aiming for replacing the current halogen lightning under the wall cabinets.

Since I´m not really sure about what color temperature I wan´t I have decided to go for a dynamic white Led Strip with two Leds; one with 2700K and one with 6000K and dim between those. They are on separate channels.

 

My plan is to dim it with a Fibaro RGBW Controller. I hope that´l work.

 

But, I need to do it user friendly (risk of low Wife-Acceptance-Factor).

Alternatives:

1. Completely dimmable both light and colour

2. A couple of set temperatures and only dim the light.

 

How do I create this? What is my options? I believe two potentiometers would be the most user friendly but is that possible?

 

 

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Fibaro Home Center Lite

2 Telldus Plug in Switches

2 Fibaro Dimmers and more to come

8 Danfoss Thermostats

[speedy 64]

My recommendation is to not buy the 2700K and 6000K led stripe.

6000k is WAY to white (almost blue) and 2700K is almost never 2700K its more like 3500K = To white.

So in the end you end up with a light that is to white whatever you do.

 

I always use RGBW stripes, this way you can set any color, temperature and intensity and mood.

Buy the highest W possible, (minimum 14W/ meter or similar)

And always use 24V strips, its so much better and aren't prone to different outputs along the stripe (due to voltage drop) if you use long stripes at low intensity.

And buy the warm white version even though you use a RGBW stripe, the W (white) part of the stripe is alway to white (for me) so you always need to add some color.

Sometimes these stripes are namned RGBWW.

 

As for controlling, you can set a color using the app and then control the stripe (dimming, on/off) using S2 in the kitchen ceiling dimmer for example.

This way you don't have to do any wiring to the RGBW device, just connect the LED stripe and its done.

 

This is how i do it most of the time.

 

Edited January 28, 2017 by speedy

[petergebruers 1,261]

For compatibility of the strip with RGBW module, please post a data sheet. I'll have a look at it...

Like @speedy I have mostly 24 V strip, for the same reasons  ...

[Guest roen2000]

Thanks for your input. It´s valuable to me.

Maybe I need to reconsider this strip. I haven´t tested it my self but I have heard of people complaining about an RGBW giving strange white. But that may be an old truth, I don´t know.

 

Unfortunately I haven´t found a real datasheet. I have a link an only in Swedish.

Please login or register to see this link.

I miss information regarding Ra/CRI and how true their statement about 2700K is.

 

 

[petergebruers 1,261]

It's a bit of a minefield... You say they don't talk about CRI and that usually means - they don't have a clue, or it's nothing to brag about. I think these multi-white strips exist because their light output is very high. I'm a bit pessimistic: the phosphors used are the same ones used in CFL. And I got a box full of those, some stand out like recent Osram and Philips, really good quality light output. No brand CFL usually have bad CRI (in my box). I've seen a few warm white LEDs (electronics hobby got out of control, I have LED chips in all kinds of packages).

 

If you want to get a pure RGB strip to output the same white light, you end up turning down the blue channel and the green channel, and the efficiency of the LEDS differs, is lower, than the efficiency of those phosphor LEDS. So light output per meter of a *pure* RGB strip, when mostly used as a white light source, is rather limited. But you can have any colour you like.

 

If have yet another somewhat different setup, that does seem to have the qualities of both types of strip! It's one RGB strip and one "warm white" strip (no spec 100% Chinese full white only). The idea is, you want mostly white light, high efficiency, but want to add some colour to give it a cool or warm tint. Some call it "pastel", not sure if that really conveys the message. Of course, if you want deep colours, that is still possible (for instance R=255, G=0; B=0; W=0) but it will not match the intensity of white LEDs at full brightness. It depends on what you want, but my house isn't a disco

 

I think... actually... the best advise is: to buy some 1m led strips and try it out. It's a personal thing. Warm white means different things to different people, 2700 k from different vendors are different. 

 

My reference for "nice light" is still the old, 230 V halogen bulb. To get about the same quality if light, I install "Philips Warm Glow" 9 W bulbs. They turn orange-y when dimmed down. I think their white is superb. Works well with FG-212. This might interest you: these exist as 12 V spot light. I have one, for testing purposes, and it's identical to the 230 V version. So that might be an option too... Not everyone agrees this should be your reference. I know someone who prefers 3400 K, always. I like more orange or red in the evening.

 

The app has a colour wheel for RGB and RGBW but not for other combination of LEDs. I don't use it very much and I think it is very accurate. To make it accurate, Fibaro would have to add a few parameters, coefficients that describe the colour and light power output of the different LEDs. Instead I use some presets in a scene, plus sometimes a remote control to step through 5 or 6 presets.

 

Potentiometer as input? Nah... Unless you've got a motor with Z-Wave remote control to turn them

As soon as you use remote commands to set the RGBW, the potentiometers no longer match the output.

Never tried, have only seen a few posts, ... dunno.

 

[speedy 64]

37 minutes ago, roen2000 said:

Thanks for your input. It´s valuable to me.

 I haven´t tested it my self but I have heard of people complaining about an RGBW giving strange white. But that may be an old truth, I don´t know.

 

Maybe you heard of people using RGB stripes and get strange whites.

That is true as you mix light to get white.

But with RGB+W stripes you have a separate white led chip so the light is good and we don't have to mix RGB to get white.

So from my experience (also using RGB stripes when RGB+W wasn't available) i can confirm that it hard to get a "nice white" as you can get when using a true RGB+W stripe.

 

[petergebruers 1,261]

41 minutes ago, roen2000 said:

(...) I haven´t tested it my self but I have heard of people complaining about an RGBW giving strange white. But that may be an old truth, I don´t know.

(...)

I'm unsure what it means... I'd say that can't be true, because the RGBW doesn't produce *ANY* light. It is 4 dimmers in a box. You're the boss! If you attach one pure red to R and one pure white to G, the colour wheel doesn't work. But it's still only 2 dimmers... set R=16 and G=255, you'll have maximum white light with some red.

[petergebruers 1,261]

5 minutes ago, speedy said:

 

Maybe you heard of people using RGB stripes and get strange whites.

That is true as you mix light to get white.

But with RGB+W stripes you have a separate white led chip so the light is good and we don't have to mix RGB to get white.

So from my experience (also using RGB stripes when RGB+W wasn't available) i can confirm that it hard to get a "nice white" as you can get when using a true RGB+W stripe.

 

 

Just now, petergebruers said:

I'm unsure what it means... I'd say that can't be true, because the RGBW doesn't produce *ANY* light. It is 4 dimmers in a box. You're the boss! If you attach one pure red to R and one pure white to G, the colour wheel doesn't work. But it's still only 2 dimmers... set R=16 and G=255, you'll have maximum white light with some red.

 

Haha, @speedy and I were answering at the same time! Yes, I see what you mean, the RGBW colour wheel  may disappoint when your strip doesn't match the one Fibaro had in mind when they designed the colour wheel. And it will be worse than disappointing if you don't put "R on R, G on G, and so on". So you simply don't use the colour wheel.

[speedy 64]

@petergebruers  

 

1 hour ago, roen2000 said:

Unfortunately I haven´t found a real datasheet. I have a link an only in Swedish.

Please login or register to see this link.

I miss information regarding Ra/CRI and how true their statement about 2700K is.

 

Well you could try that, but its 100 EUR!+ for the same stuff (basically) you can get from ex Aliexpress (at a fraction), a quick search reveals many suppliers. 

You can get stripes with 19W/m for about 6$ / meter.

Please login or register to see this link.