LED strip in series

Question

I am planning to order LED strips, I need to connect 6 x 5m LED strips in parallel so that they can be controlled via single controller, but am not sure if the controller will be able to handle the load or I need to do some modifications in the setup.

Controller specs:

In LED specs they have mentioned that each LED consumes 0.24W and there are 300 LEDs in a 5m strip. LED strip: http://s.aliexpress.com/y6vyUfQR

I am not quite sure how to get this setup done, help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

^{simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab}

This schematic shows a parallel connection between all your 6 LED strips, powered from the Mi Light device. This is a simplified view because all wires between Mi Light and a single MED strip are actually all six wires you need to get the LED to light up: V+, R, G, B, WW and CW.

According to Mi Light, each channel (R, G, B, WW or CW) can provide up to 6A, but you cannot draw more than 15 A in total, that is when you sum all currents from the 5 color channels. So what is the maximum current drawn by a single strip ? That would be:

\$ \frac{0.24}{V+}*300 \$ Amps

If you know what V+ is, you can find out the maximum current consumption of a single strip. Then you can figure the maximum current consumption of your 6 strips and make sure it does not exceed the 15 maximum Amps provided by Mi Light.

Let's say V+=12V, then a single strip could draw 6 Amps, which is already the limit of a single channel. You can then light up a whole strip with one channel. But the 6 strips could draw 6*6 = 36 Amps that Mi Light cannot handle. So you won't be able to light up all LEDs of all your strips. However the current may vary alongside the brightness required and the color you want to achieve. A dim green on all LEDs won't draw the same current as a bright purple would. You can have some fun by testing on one strip the effect of brightness and color combination to get a hint of what is manageable.