OK, just because I seem to like to things that are over my head, I need some advice. I am not an electrician, just a homeowner who has done a good amount of my own electrical (and yes, had it inspected each time) so type slowly to me....
I am building my home theatre and working on the lighting. At the moment, I have two 24V 24W 32ft (.75W/ft) LED strip lights that will be cut down to about 18ft each strip. I assume this means the wattage will drop but lets assume not for now. I currently have them wired in parallel and powered by a 24V 96W dimmable driver which is, itself, wired to a Lutron dimmer switch on the wall. All of this was just inspected and is fine.
What I am now thinking of doing is trying to run 8 or 9 LED low voltage spotlights down the sides to wash the walls in a soft light for effect and to highlight movie posters. The lights I want to use are 12V 3W lights which means .25A per light.
I would like to run these off of the same driver so that all lights dim with one switch. Because these are 12V, I know that if this was a stand alone circuit, I could run it off a 24V driver if I ran 2 in series. Assuming I only used 2 for a moment, I know this would mean the power draw from the driver would be 6W...24V x .25A = 6W
So, bunch of questions:
can I run two different voltage lights (the strips at 24V and the spotlights at 12V in series) off the same driver?
If so, is it as simple, initially, as connecting three positive and three negative outs from the driver (two of the positive and two of the negative outs to run the two LED strips in parallel plus one set of outs to the spotlight setup with the Positive at the start of the spotlight string and the Negative off the last light in the string and, of course, negatives to positives in between)?
Assuming I am still OK doing what I am talking about, I understand that the more of these spotlights I run in series, the bigger an issue I am going to cause. This is where I am most foggy. If I am right in assuming that running 2 12V lights in series matches the 24V out from the driver, by then having 8 of these in series, does this mean that each spotlight is only going to get 3V? (24V circuit / 8 lights)...If so, then I assume this means each light is 3V, .25A, .75W....correct math?
If 3) is all correct, I therefore believe the spotlights would be far too dim. OR does it mean that each spotlight will still be trying to draw 3W and simply 3W x 8 means they will still be needing 24W total? As I said, this is where my feeble mind breaks down.
I think you get what I am trying to do now. If this won't work no matter what, please just tell me to give up. If it will somehow, let me know how.
Thanks!
