modular overkill led striplight build

[cobshopgrow]

i am not dogmatic on any given rating of my config, youre more it seems, therefore i mentioned the box rating.
the cable i use is rated for 160V, the mini lite traps are rated for 160V also, boxes 400v i think my XT60 connectors have no real voltage rating, the 60 stands for amperes, theyre thick plastic in kv rated shrinktube, feel ok to touch it.
yes the eb3 have a rating of 60v, for the reason of the CE mark low voltage directives.
show me a samsung strip with a CE mark and a note for 60V max., i havent found.my main reason is i dont want to deal with 14 groups.

"153 volts and the last is approx 10.9 volts. Shouldn't this tell you something?"
i can ask this also, the voltage goes down, the current not so trace size calc still apply.
also it tells us there arent many points with 153V, am sure you also know that you need to touch plus and minus of the driver.

if your therorie would be right you would see a similar behavoiur on all 4 groups right?
how can it be else?
ill make you a recent thermal.

"it would explain why your lowest value of 562 versus 875 for a difference of 56%."
ive stated these are rough measurements, and consider where the tentdoor is open.
i took tons of measuremnets and cant follow you there.

btw. i hsve the same feeling , you intepret things which arent there and i try to correct that.

 

[Bignutes]

Ok I like the idea of proof with the thermals, it would put this to rest.

I found this to support my statements about series wiring as well:

"This is a quick and easy method, because it doesn't require you to create another separate wire connection to the power supply. You're simply allowing for a "jump" between two LED strip sections.

The downside is that this creates the potential for additional voltage drop, leading to diminished light output among the LEDs furthest from the power supply. The reason is that connecting the LED strips in "series" allows for only one path for the electrical current to take. All of the electrical current for an entire LED strip installation needs to travel through the first few inches of the LED strip run, which can act as a bottle neck for current flow, reducing the amount of voltage and current that reaches the farther LED strip sections."

Source is here:

Connecting LED Strips in "Series" vs "Parallel" | Waveform Lighting

www.waveformlighting.com

Don't worry about the whole parallel wiring unequalness, that is mainly for older leds that weren't binned and when voltage tolerances were sloppy, it's not generally a problem since the lighting companies instituted quality control measures.

The thermal on my light strips are all within a degree Celsius of one another but I'm running 4px4s, keeping below the 120 volt max rating, i put four in series I'm at 100volts. This will give you more uniformity in light spread more so than the unequal concern you may have with running parallel.

My very first build I used thermal conductive adhesive. Ended up with thermal readings all over the map. Some of the strips lifted off heatsink and created hot spots which gave unequal light output between strips. My next light used double sided tape and although not as good in theory my readings are consistently the same across all strips and overall much better than the thermal adhesive. Point is it doesn't take much to alter light output between strips when installed or setup incorrectly.

Apologies for the pettiness.

 

[cobshopgrow]

@Bignutes
this i had on the disc, ill make some recent.
on the recent ones the problem is would have to disconnect the fans and explain how the framing works as heatsink to get the picture.



can you see the beginning or end of a group?
hardly a c diff, have you measured wit ha thermo cam or with a ir temp gun? (which not showing you the die temp)

"The downside is that this creates the potential for additional voltage drop, leading to diminished light output among the LEDs furthest from the power supply. The reason is that connecting the LED strips in "series" allows for only one path for the electrical current to take. All of the electrical current for an entire LED strip installation needs to travel through the first few inches of the LED strip run, which can act as a bottle neck for current flow, reducing the amount of voltage and current that reaches the farther LED strip sections."

i gave you the example calcs a page back.
the trace is thicker then 0.5mm, much thicker, therefore it can easily handle the 525mA max and even more the 300mA i use in real.

"Series has the advantage of uniform LED brightness with string. Because the LED supply current to all the same. Moreover, the driver IC only with a current output, we can light up the entire series LED, the circuit structure is simple. In addition, even if an LED short-circuit short-circuit fault, the other LED light is able to continue their advantage lies.

The disadvantage is a higher drive voltage. 14 LED in series, assuming an LED forward voltage drop (VF) is 4V, the drive voltage required 56V. If the 28 series, is as high as 112V. Apart from some semiconductor vendors, the high driving voltage of the LED driver IC of a very narrow range of options.
Series and parallel the advantages and disadvantages

In addition, there is an LED fails open circuit fault, the LED in series can not be lit all the shortcomings.

There are two advantages in parallel. One is able to simultaneously drive multiple low-voltage LED. If the series is 2 × 14 parallel structure, then, 8V drive voltage can drive 28 LED. Another advantage is that when a series LED for some reason fails, the other can continue to light up the LED in series. In other words, can be formed easily affected by the failure of the circuit.

There are two shortcomings. One is connected in parallel LED strings are difficult to control the supply current to the same value, so the brightness of each LED string is likely to differ. Another is the drive circuit is more complex. If the number is 14 in parallel, you need a string of 14 LED wiring. Moreover, according to the circuit structure, and all of the LED string voltage must be individually controlled and current control, resulting in increased costs. "
just a quick google

LED advantages and disadvantages of series and parallel , led filament bulb, vintage led bulb , led panel light , China led light manufacturer

LED advantages and disadvantages of series and parallel

danforelighting.com

nothing wrong going with 120v or 100v, sensefull and safer, the option just hasnt been there when in choosed the 320w driver, while i wont even take a 320w driver anymore, a xlg 240 something would do it.

 

[Bignutes]

I see the thermal pattern, both central strips are your two parallel leg starting points, if you move up from center the strips cool off, if you move down from center the strips also cool off. And its progressive. This is how you or i would wire too to minimize cabling.

If you have a backing on one led I suggest you move it if at all possible because this will throw off the output of that one led to the ones that don't have it. Your inducing a situation of thermal differences and I don't think you will have thermal runaway but that's a good way to get it.

You could do 10px5s, trust me, your last statement that the current is difficult to control in each leg with more parallel, it's the opposite the more parallel you have the more equally distributed the current will be, no extra current control is needed with modern leds. Sure it's more wiring but you will have better results. Try it.

Again I can't stress this enough it doesn't matter the trace size (as long as your within spec that is).

 

[cobshopgrow]

yes the strips are a tad cooler to the sides, as there is more thermal material, the end t-slot bars and basically less heat, middle gets heated by both sides.

but most important, this doesnt corelate to the wiring sheme!

you have meausrements with a thermal cam you can show?
i mean, that would make things easier, a ir gun dont tell you much, honestly, i have one too.

youre right that parallel wiring of leds shouldnt be a big concern nowadays, qc should be on point, but are my different lenght wires also as precise matched? dont thnk so.
also i think we would see the parallel wiring first before we see the series.
still physics of parallel wiring apply and it simply cant be better, more equal then in series as you are stating.

 

[cobshopgrow]

i also like to dea with just 4 groups for the reason i could hide a lot wiring in the slots of the t-slot, i couldnt with 10... but thats a minor detail.

 

[Rocket Soul]

Ok I like the idea of proof with the thermals, it would put this to rest.

I found this to support my statements about series wiring as well:

"This is a quick and easy method, because it doesn't require you to create another separate wire connection to the power supply. You're simply allowing for a "jump" between two LED strip sections.

The downside is that this creates the potential for additional voltage drop, leading to diminished light output among the LEDs furthest from the power supply. The reason is that connecting the LED strips in "series" allows for only one path for the electrical current to take. All of the electrical current for an entire LED strip installation needs to travel through the first few inches of the LED strip run, which can act as a bottle neck for current flow, reducing the amount of voltage and current that reaches the farther LED strip sections."

Source is here:

Connecting LED Strips in "Series" vs "Parallel" | Waveform Lighting

www.waveformlighting.com

Don't worry about the whole parallel wiring unequalness, that is mainly for older leds that weren't binned and when voltage tolerances were sloppy, it's not generally a problem since the lighting companies instituted quality control measures.

The thermal on my light strips are all within a degree Celsius of one another but I'm running 4px4s, keeping below the 120 volt max rating, i put four in series I'm at 100volts. This will give you more uniformity in light spread more so than the unequal concern you may have with running parallel.

My very first build I used thermal conductive adhesive. Ended up with thermal readings all over the map. Some of the strips lifted off heatsink and created hot spots which gave unequal light output between strips. My next light used double sided tape and although not as good in theory my readings are consistently the same across all strips and overall much better than the thermal adhesive. Point is it doesn't take much to alter light output between strips when installed or setup incorrectly.

Apologies for the pettiness.

Connecting LED Strips in "Series" vs "Parallel" | Waveform Lighting
Hey Bignutes. I think you need to read thru this again. The strips in question arent the same as used here, its cuttable twelve volt like on a reel. This had me tripped up once too, and i think i got it from this same website. Read all the way down, when they say series they are really talking of daisy chaining:

- We find it is important to clarify, because true electrical series connections will change the required input voltage. When people talk about wiring LED strips in "series," however, they almost always connecting LED strip sections end-to-end. When connected in this way, the LED strip input voltage remains unchanged. In other words, you can use a 12V power supply to power a 4-ft section of 12V LED strip lights with another 3-ft section of 12V LED strip lights daisy-chained.

Also if you look to the images you cant actually see a series connection, last strip is not connected to negative on the driver, its only connected to the first strip.

 

[Bignutes]

yes the strips are a tad cooler to the sides, as there is more thermal material, the end t-slot bars and basically less heat, middle gets heated by both sides.

but most important, this doesnt corelate to the wiring sheme!

you have meausrements with a thermal cam you can show?
i mean, that would make things easier, a ir gun dont tell you much, honestly, i have one too.

youre right that parallel wiring of leds shouldnt be a big concern nowadays, qc should be on point, but are my different lenght wires also as precise matched? dont thnk so.
also i think we would see the parallel wiring first before we see the series.
still physics of parallel wiring apply and it simply cant be better, more equal then in series as you are stating.

I don't need expensive gadgets to be high tech, just place the temp gun in the same spot on the angle aluminum down the length for each length and compare. I tend to save money that way.

I don't think you pay close enough attention to your results.

As for resistance in wire for different lengths.........the resistance value for aluminum is 0.000000032, multiply it by the change in length between legs equals the square root of fuck all. Your creativity is quite high but your analytical and evaluation of things is just above average but still lacking when it comes to actual design. This kind of stuff is what I do for a living, the devils in the details. No skin off my nose it's your view of perfection don't let me tint those rose colored glasses.

 

[Bignutes]

Connecting LED Strips in "Series" vs "Parallel" | Waveform Lighting
Hey Bignutes. I think you need to read thru this again. The strips in question arent the same as used here, its cuttable twelve volt like on a reel. This had me tripped up once too, and i think i got it from this same website. Read all the way down, when they say series they are really talking of daisy chaining:

- We find it is important to clarify, because true electrical series connections will change the required input voltage. When people talk about wiring LED strips in "series," however, they almost always connecting LED strip sections end-to-end. When connected in this way, the LED strip input voltage remains unchanged. In other words, you can use a 12V power supply to power a 4-ft section of 12V LED strip lights with another 3-ft section of 12V LED strip lights daisy-chained.

Also if you look to the images you cant actually see a series connection, last strip is not connected to negative on the driver, its only connected to the first strip.

Look at his thermal picture, tells me all I need to know.

 

[Bignutes]

yes the strips are a tad cooler to the sides, as there is more thermal material, the end t-slot bars and basically less heat, middle gets heated by both sides.

It's not the sides of the strips that I'm looking at, it is the comparison of strip to strip at the same horizontal distance.

 

[weed-whacker]

Yeah I edited my post, I agree with you I didn't need to put that in. This is an acceptance that I was wrong, something I don't think cobshop is capable of.

Hey man

I have a similar set up using 17 of the 2ft strips in series

So... actually these can’t run like that?
60v max?

Where does it say that please?

 

[Rocket Soul]

Youre right that there seems to be a slight thermal pattern. But what theyre talking about is clearly not the same as here, Theyre talking about daisychained strips.

 

[Bignutes]

Hey man

I have a similar set up using 17 of the 2ft strips in series

So... actually these can’t run like that?
60v max?

Where does it say that please?

Datasheet, page four, Table 2 Electrical characteristics, note 3. Sure you can run them like that but you'll wear out the first ones first and you'll overload the connectors beyond their rating by over 3 times.

 

[Bignutes]

Youre right that there seems to be a slight thermal pattern. But what theyre talking about is clearly not the same as here, Theyre talking about daisychained strips.

Same thing happens Rocketsoul, and remember a slight thermal pattern is only judged by the gradient of the color distribution, basically the resolution the thermal imaging is set to. It might be a small temp variation or large but would really need the scale to determine how much and then go back to datasheet and compare the luminous flux with case temperature graph. Slight changes in voltage cause big changes in light output for diodes, the same goes for thermal and light output.

 

[Teag]

last strip is not connected to negative on the driver, its only connected to the first strip.

Wouldn't that mean that the strips are wired in parallel branches? The "series"/daisy chaining would seem to apply. Meaning a "parallel" setup would equalize the input voltage to each strip?

 

[cobshopgrow]

i dont say more parallel wiring wont work, really do as you like, its for sure fine.
practically the wire lengh wont matter.
i just say it cant perfrom better.

trace with matters, its one factor for the resistance which is the main and only reason for a voltage drop.
there you should be in spec.
this isnt related to any low voltage directive.

"both central strips are your two parallel leg starting points, if you move up from center the strips cool off, if you move down from center the strips also cool off. And its progressive. This is how you or i would wire too to minimize cabling."

my both central strips arent my parallel leg starting points.

lets take the three middle ones in the thermal picture, as you refer to these.
middle is a 1. above middle is a 13 (from 14), below middle is a 4
so what you state doesnt really work that way, upwards its wired the other way around and its showing the same thermal pattern to you !
i marked a end 14 with a E.

btw. the difference between red and white is about 2c in the thermal.

 

[cobshopgrow]

Datasheet, page four, Table 2 Electrical characteristics, note 3. Sure you can run them like that but you'll wear out the first ones first and you'll overload the connectors beyond their rating by over 3 times.

youre more likely to overload the first connector if you run your strips in parallel afterwards (through this first connector).
ampere kills connectors, not voltage (ok as long you dont let it spark).
while 17 2 feet in series, thats some real high voltage, going to the limit of the full sized eb strip connectors and is overall starting to become nasty.

 

[cobshopgrow]

Same thing happens Rocketsoul, and remember a slight thermal pattern is only judged by the gradient of the color distribution, basically the resolution the thermal imaging is set to. It might be a small temp variation or large but would really need the scale to determine how much and then go back to datasheet and compare the luminous flux with case temperature graph. Slight changes in voltage cause big changes in light output for diodes, the same goes for thermal and light output.

slight changes in voltage changing the current, as the current is set by the constant current driver the voltage is adjusted accordingly so all get the same current and lit the same.

the scale is showen in the thermal above (not clear?) black is 29, white is 41, red is 39.
and one C diff isnt a big deal flux wise on these modern whites.
you will have a c diff. also,at least, even if you cant measure that with a ir temp gun, especially on the back after the heat is distributed.
i have no problems with using a ir gun, you just cant compare it, youll never get the die temp or what really going on and its a real bad base to discus.

sidenote, my real world usage temp is atm about 34c die temp.

beside that your thermal pattern interpretation makes no sense anyway.

 

[cobshopgrow]

there is a strip 13 where you think a 2 or 3 is!

i am using 4 groups, and showen are all 4 on the thermal.
you see 2 patterns, 2 groups, 2 starting points, where are 4..

with 56 strips it makes also no sense to start with both in the middle 14 stips give always a pair.
you clearly had no idea how the wiring goes and guessed completly wrong.

heck, youre not even seeing the scale on thermal and interpret the colors right.

 

[Rocket Soul]

Same thing happens Rocketsoul, and remember a slight thermal pattern is only judged by the gradient of the color distribution, basically the resolution the thermal imaging is set to. It might be a small temp variation or large but would really need the scale to determine how much and then go back to datasheet and compare the luminous flux with case temperature graph. Slight changes in voltage cause big changes in light output for diodes, the same goes for thermal and light output.

Why would the same thing happen in end-to-end daisychain as in a series connection?

As i said before, this website had me tripped up before.