Not getting full power

clayts · Sat Nov 17, 2018 7:46 pm

Hey man,

Wondering if you resolved this one. I'm having the same issue more or less. It seems each strip for me is getting the right amount of current but then the total current (and therefore power draw) out of the driver is lower than it should be..

ubuntuuser · Mon Nov 19, 2018 4:21 pm

Make sure you are using the proper gauge wire. The further away the driver is the more voltage drop you will see. Using a larger wire will solve this. I gained 98w on my system by updating the wire to 10awg from the driver and then adding a 16awg from the first strip to the last.

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1570&sid=92f2a65de ... af432213d0

clayts · Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:02 am

Interesting. I tried both 16 and 14awg run in the driver to the strips (only a couple of feet) and it made no difference to the current draw.

I guess I could try even bigger wire..

ubuntuuser · Mon Nov 26, 2018 3:56 pm

clayts wrote: ↑
Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:02 am
Interesting. I tried both 16 and 14awg run in the driver to the strips (only a couple of feet) and it made no difference to the current draw.

I guess I could try even bigger wire..

Do you have a digital voltage meter? I am not sure it is worth flying blind on this. Use it to check your voltage at various locations in your build. Test both ends of your main wire, what is the voltage right out of the driver? What is the voltage at the other end? If it drops at all it can make a huge difference.

clayts · Sat Dec 01, 2018 9:01 pm

Yeah definitely have a multimeter. I made another thread about it.

It would seem that each strip (1ft Samsung using the exact setup from this site exist my driver is 150H instead of 120H) is, pulling around 19.8 ish volts. The decrease slightly with distance from the driver as expected.

12 strips all in parallel. Can't work out why I'm only getting around 4.5A straight out of the driver.

The other thing I can't work out is whether the totals at each of the wagos should add up or not. Ie, if I have 3 strips connected to each wago, should the difference between the current going into a wago and coming out of a wago, be the sum of the currents being drawn by each strip? Mine doesn't seem to be like this.

I guess in the end, if each strip is pulling 19.8ish Volts, they are drawing their appropriate amount of current according to their data sheet?