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I have six 12V WS2815 that I would like to connect in a series and control with WLED running on an nodeMCU board. I have the 5m x 30LED/m = 150 LED strips.

I'm struggling to figure out the proper way to power these strips. The specifications say that the 30 LED/m strips use 9 W/m, so that's 45 W per strip. At 12V, that's 3.75A per strip, or 22.5A for all six.

I assume that I can't just hook up a 25A 12V power supply to one end of the series of strips and call it a day, that's way too much power flowing along the entire length of the strips and something will go poof.

How many of these can I safely power together from a single end?

What gauge wire do I need to supply power?

Should I keep all the power lines connected across all the strips, and inject power at certain intervals, or is it better to just keep the data lines connected and power each strip or set of strips independently?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ What does the LED strip datasheet or installation manual say about it? Does it came with this info? Can you ask the seller? \$\endgroup\$
    – Justme
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 16:16
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    \$\begingroup\$ It doesn't say anything about maximum length. It just says that input voltage should be between 9 and 13V. \$\endgroup\$
    – Chris AtLee
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 16:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ Does this answer your question? Powering 16 meter LED strip There are many questions and answers about powering long LED strips. \$\endgroup\$
    – tomnexus
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 16:56
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    \$\begingroup\$ That one doesn't exactly, but I did find a comment on Will my chain of LED strips burn out that says the main issue is voltage drop, and that it should be safe to string as many together as you want to test. \$\endgroup\$
    – Chris AtLee
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 17:46

2 Answers 2

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Grabbing current capacity from this chart: wiring gauge current capacity

I would probably run a bundle of 12-14 gauge wire and put power on both ends of each strip. led strip wiring

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Here is a demonstration of a relatively long WS2812 strip (1000+ pixels) achieved with good programming.

In theory, you should be able to drive an unlimited amount of LEDs with sufficient power delivery. Note that the refresh rate would decrease as the amount of pixels increase.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks. I'm not concerned about the timing aspects, I'm more concerned with the power delivery. \$\endgroup\$
    – Chris AtLee
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 16:39

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