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Using long LED strip with Fibaro RGBW Controller


BlackMoon1190

Question

Hello, i I arrange a flat. I thought it would be a great idea to use baseboard with led lightning. It's empty inside, manufacturer just left room for LED strip. My question is: how long led strip can i use with Fibaro RGBW contoller? Is one controller enough for whole flat?

 

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That depends on the rated power consumption of the LED strip. That is usually stated in W/m (Watt per meter, unless you're in US) and can vary since the LED density (30/m, 60/m, 120/m etc) and type (e.g. 5050, 2835, etc) is different for different strips.

Once you know how much power the strip consumes and what voltage it's rated for (e.g. 12VDC or 24 VDC) you do a P*L/V = I [amp] calculation (power in W/m times desired strip length in meters divided by voltage in volts) to get the total current for the strip you need to supply.
Fibaro RGBW controller can supply a maximum of 12 A combined current, and I wouldn't push it near that number (I prefer to utilize less than 80-85% of rated max power). 

 

I'd say you won't be able to drive more than 10m of LED strip with one RGBW controller, but you can either use lower powered strips or combine 2 or more RGBW units synced together.

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The total limitation of RGBW controller is 144W at 12V DC (or 288W at 24V DC). The maximum length depends on how many watts per meter the LED strip requires, so please consult the manufacturers data sheets for information on this.

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Fibaro RGBW can give very good performance. Most of the problem is with stripes.
Rarely you can have more than 5 meters because stripes lose strength.
You can connect up to 10 meters if the RGBW controller is in the middle and the left and right are 5 meters each.
Of course, strip performance must not overlap the controller performance.

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On 7/25/2019 at 10:08 PM, mika said:

RGBW units synced together.

How do you sync rgbw units as described above.  Is there a wiring schematic someone could post?  Thanks

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On 12/28/2019 at 7:39 AM, EdwardL said:

How do you sync rgbw units as described above.  Is there a wiring schematic someone could post?  Thanks

There's an option for this in home center 2 interface. Not sure if doable in other controllers.

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On 12/27/2019 at 8:39 PM, EdwardL said:

How do you sync rgbw units as described above.  Is there a wiring schematic someone could post?  Thanks

 

Either by using associations, LUA or Alexa

 

With associations the syncing usually works for a few seconds and then the master keeps changing colour while the slaves are stuck on the last colour they were up to. When you finally let go of the wall switch for the master the slaves will catch-up.

 

With LUA, I vaguely recall,  there will only be a sync when you let go of the button. Maybe there's a way to write the LUA to work better, but I'm not sure it would be desirable for the other LED strip to try and play catch-up as from my experience the RGBW modules are notoriously bad at reporting status, when you have a few of them to play with.

 

The last option is to use Alexa. Last night I found I could change colours of RGBW modules through Alexa, but with limited success.

 

Maybe Google works as well, but I have not tested it on my system as I've given up on Google Home for now due to time restrictions for playing with these toys.

 

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