I'm trying to build a LED panel around my living room, using 10 strips of ~10m packed with WS2812. A rough estimation of the power required with all LEDs at full brightness would be 700 W.
The flexible PCB of the LED strips of course cannot carry that amount of power, so I need to feed power at least once every meter. I'm looking for the sanest way to do that.
My current approach would be two metal pipes along the wall (that would also provide the support), and having individual panels clip onto those, and simple connectors for the signal lines. I'd directly distribute the 5V from the PSUs.
Questions:
- is this a good approach, or is there a better way?
- if I have two PSUs, each for 350W max, does it make sense to connect one to each end of the rail?
- if I assume that most of the time, I'll have a load of ~20W (because brain surgery is my hobby, not my job), is there a way I could make this more efficient?
- if I assume that I won't ever need all LEDs on at the same time, can I somehow enforce this (e.g. use three rails, if rail 1 uses more than 175W, power down rail 2 so the entire power consumption will not exceed 350W)?