LED lighting strips

alex30 · Aug 27, 2014

I am looking at producing a production light for filming using natural white light led strips. I will be using 3 5m reels rated at 12v and 2A/5m. I am looking at using 100cm length (therefore there will be 15 100cm lengths) and was wondering whether it is best to have them in series or parallel and what sort of power supply to use. Ideally I would like to have a way of diming the lights so could something like a potentiometer be used?

An help and advice would greatly appreciated,

Alex

davesparks · Aug 27, 2014

The strips would normally need to be connected in parallel, the strip will be made up of lots of small series string connected in paralell onto the main power conductors.

Your best bet for dimming would be to get dim able ballasts. Using 0-10V dimmable ballasts would allow you to use a single pot to dim them all.

alex30 · Aug 27, 2014

Thanks for your help

Barry White · Aug 27, 2014

I used these Waterproof Cool White LED Strip Lighting strip lights 3528/5050 30CM 1/3/5/10 M | eBay (5m +power) in my kitchen they can be cut every 3 leds and tails soldered on to the board so can be made any length (i used hot glue to reinsulate the tails after soldering) unsure if they are dimmable though depends on the pcb used. conect in parallel as mentioned earlier
theres a dimmer I pondered over buying for another project here LED Strip Inline Dimmer switch for all dimmable 3528 5050 strip LED Tape | eBay
but not tried it yet. (dimmer will only do 5m )

davesparks · Aug 27, 2014

mykey said:
I used these Waterproof Cool White LED Strip Lighting strip lights 3528/5050 30CM 1/3/5/10 M | eBay (5m +power) in my kitchen they can be cut every 3 leds and tails soldered on to the board so can be made any length (i used hot glue to reinsulate the tails after soldering) unsure if they are dimmable though depends on the pcb used. conect in series as mentioned earlier
theres a dimmer I pondered over buying for another project here LED Strip Inline Dimmer switch for all dimmable 3528 5050 strip LED Tape | eBay
but not tried it yet. (dimmer will only do 5m )

Don't connect in series!
The strips need to be connected in parallel, they are made up of many small series strings connected together in parallel which is why you can only cut in certain places.