LED strip light and wiring solutions needed

[Kenny903]

Hi,

I currently have a LED strip light wired up in a dark stairway - it is powered by a 5amp rectifier (Supply A) . the current power supply is on a timer that turns on at night only.

I want to supply a second power source (Supply B) to the LED strip in the stair way so I can use with a manual switch so I can turn the light on during the day.

What I need to know is will this product be ok to make the first power supply a one way supply only? - ( A ) the reason I want to block the power is to prevent other strip lights turning on from that 5 amp rectifier (A).


Finally - will the LED strip light be affected if both power supplies happened to be on at the same time - so if supply (A) was on and supply (B) happened to be left on the LED strip would receive 10amps - would this cause damage?

Cheers

 

[mindless1]

I'm a little unclear on what you are asking. I'll post an answer to my best guess at what you are describing but you might want to elaborate a bit more and research the specific terms that apply to your components, possibly providing links and/or part #s if they are sold online.

You seem to be describing multiple lights wired in parallel that come on via the timer controlled supply A, but then you want to turn on supply B and only have it power the stairway light, not the other lights wired in parallel?

What are you referring to when you wrote "this product"? You should refrain from using the term "rectifier" to describe the LED power supply because it's an improper term and because in this case I'm going to make use of the term properly and don't want there to be any confusion.

You can isolate the stairway LED strip from the rest by using a diode in series on the positive lead, as a rectifier, from supply A, and a second diode in series on the positive lead from supply B. This will isolate them from each other so any minor differences in voltage are not a problem, nor does one see current backflow when only the other is turned on. This assumes the light strips run acceptably with the potentially lower voltage of a ~ 0.2 to 0.7V forward drop of most diodes, but if it is a current regulating power supply then it should just make up the difference by regulating to an equivalently higher output voltage to maintain the pre-set current flow.

The combined amperage on the other hand, is not a problem if these are voltage regulated supplies because it's then the voltage that determines the current flow through the LED strip, or a driver circuit integrated into the LED strip, but assuming they are voltage regulating that is why you'd want the isolating diodes so they aren't fighting with each other about the regulated voltage each outputs.

If on the other hand the power supplies are current regulated then that is a potential problem if both were powered on simultaneously to the same light strip, and yet this does not seem to be the way it's wired if you have multiple light strips wired in parallel.

It would be good for you to describe # of light strips, make/model, make/model of power supplies, etc, all the details relevant to the project.

If you have separate wire runs to each light strip then another possibility might be to put the switch into the circuit for the timer so it bypasses the timer but only on the output to the stairway strip. You wouldn't need a second power supply at all then.

Last question: Is it really a problem if all the lights come on when you manually switch the stairway light on? It would seem as though it could be handy to have a manual way to turn the rest on too and one switch to do them all would simplify things instead of having a bank of switches and labeling involved.

 

[Homerboy]

Why not just replace the timer with a in-wall switch that has a timer built in? They are out there, relatively cheap.