Just a word of caution if using the dimmer function, the dimmer works by reducing voltage to the LED. Many LED's including strip lighting are designed to run at a specific voltage, normally 12 to 14 volts and reducing/increasing the voltage can damage them. Apart from that using the remote for an on/off switch is OK and at that price it's a nice find.
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Just a word of caution if using the dimmer function, the dimmer works by reducing voltage to the LED. Many LED's including strip lighting are designed to run at a specific voltage, normally 12 to 14 volts and reducing/increasing the voltage can damage them. Apart from that using the remote for an on/off switch is OK and at that price it's a nice find.
G'day madaboutled, Yes I can imagine you could do damage to the LED's by increasing the voltage over their designed rating but,
Would you do damage to them if they were run at below voltage,??? to my way of thinking, they probably would not run too well at low voltage, The LED light that I have outside the caravan is capable of handling anything up to and including 24v, so far I haven't had any problem using this controller, although it hasn't been in use that long at this stage, time will tell.
K.J.
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There are 2 "flavours" of LED, Dimable and Non-Dimable. Most Strip lighting is Non-Dimable (not all). Using Non-Dimable in a dimable circuit may eventually damage the LEDs. Also if the LED strip is long the other thing to consider is voltage drop over the length of the strip. The dimmer function reduces the voltage, therefore a long strip may loose power which may cause some banks of the LED to dim even more and or fail.
As you say, time will tell.
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Steve, Di & Ziggy We named our Motorhome "Roadworx" because on the road works "On The Road Again" Ford Transit with 302 Windsor V8 conversion, C4 Auto, 9 Inch Ford Diff All Lighting L.E.D., 260 Amp/h AGM, 530 Watt Solar + Kipor Backup Gen.
The controller uses Pulse Width Modulation ("256-Grade PWM") which means that it switches the output on and off. It does this rapidly at up to 256 different duty cycles. In fact it is probably switching a constant current on and off rather than a voltage. If the strip lighting has its own in-built controller rather than consisting of a simple string of LEDs, then this would be a serious problem.
One other problem I can envisage would be if the strip lighting consisted of two or more parallel strings of LEDs. In such a case the controller's output would be shared between these strings, thereby seriously reducing the maximum brightness.
Edit:
I'm not sure that I have correctly understood how the device works. If it outputs constant current pulses, then what is the meaning of "Output current : peak 12A"? How does the controller know whether the LED requires 500mA or 12A?
The controller can't be a voltage source because it needs to be able to drive a string with a variable, unknown number of LEDs. One LED requires 3V, two LEDs require 6V, and so on, but the current requirement for a string of LEDs would be independent of the number of LEDs.
One other spec that is missing is the maximum number of LEDs in the string. Does the controller incorporate a voltage booster?
-- Edited by dorian on Wednesday 16th of December 2015 06:41:49 AM
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Whether there is 2, 3 or 4 strips in parallel, won't make a difference as long as the peak current draw (when the voltage is at the peak level of the pulse) is below 12A. The only problem I can see is that whether or not the maximum on time at peak voltage is too much for the 12V LED strips, as it's a 19V pulse train on a 5V level, by the way the specs are written.
The controller doesn't care how much current the LEDs require, it will supply as much as they will draw up to 12A. What limits the current draw, are the current limiting resistors in the LED strips, which are sized to allow sufficient current through the LEDs, at the nominated voltage (usually 12V). You increase the voltage rating of the strips by increasing the load resistors to maintain the required current through the LED.
As for the voltage required to drive a string of LED strip lighting, it is nominally 12V no matter how long the strip is. The reason is that the LED strips are made up of segments of 3 or 4 (or more) LEDs with built in current limiting resistors, which are connected to each of the other segment in parallel. That is why you can cut the strips on the segment markers at any length and run them on 12V.
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Actually I did misread the LED controller specs last night when I posted this. The controller accepts 5VDC to 24VDC. The amplitude of the PWM pulse train would be fixed at somewhere just over 12V p-p.
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Yes, providing the LED light was a standard 12V light, and not a multi voltage one. Could be handy as long as you don't lose the remote while you're out and about in the dark.
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Yes, that should work well with the controller, because it is just a standard 12V LED array with no built in regulator like the multi voltage ones have.
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