Shimbob wrote: ↑Wed Oct 17, 2018 7:52 pm
Having a large 24VDC power supply feeding multiple buck converters for each strip is an option. However I don't really see any off-the-shelf 50mA buck converters that aren't tiny chips you'll need to solder.
I don't have an issue with soldering tiny chips.
There seem to be a few instructables online.
Grower wrote: ↑Wed Oct 17, 2018 8:57 pm
Anything between driver and strips will lower efficiency. But why would you want to step down the voltage? just put 2x 12v strips in series and you get 24volts, rest of the strips in parallel and you're good to go. You can modify its brightness through PWM.
But you can't individually switch off strips. You would need a mcu with enough output pins to match strips number or you would need a multiplexer to increase the available pins.
I don't know how current is modified through the circuit when one of many buck converters is switched off
What is an MCU and multiplexer?
I don't really want to step down voltage.
The strips already come as 24v strips. (8 diodes, 3v each)
I don't have any particular preference of how the strips should be arranged.
All I know is that I want ~250 lumens per strip and I want them as efficient as I can practically make em.
I want ideas from you knowledgeable folks on how best I can do this
Thanks for all the help thus far.