LED reels- found stores- are these ok?

Yep, I have a lot more reels if it'll handle daisy-chained strips!

 

Looked up the specs, looks like it'll handle a bunch of strips, each strip uses about .66 amps max for each color.  I'll figure something to do with all these colored strips!

 

 

 

Working Voltage: DC 5V-24V 

Output current: 3 way, <4A (each channel)

Remote frequency: 433.92MHz

Remote distance: >15m 

Max current : 12A

Max output power :144W

Working temperature:-30~+75 centigrade

Auto memorizefunction

Control Function: Speed; Brightness; Color; Mode. 19 Dynamic Modes; 20 Static Colors

I'm working with "only" 900 RGB LED's w/ the controller; you, on the other hand, have the 2700 they shipped sending you the wrong reels plus the additional 300 with the $2.88 controller deal.  IIRC, the reels are 5 meters in length; so, you have 150+ linear feet of RGB LEDs to utilize.  It will be interesting to see how you use them--I'm sure you'll keep us posted.

I haven't really figured what I'm going to do, but I did order two of the controllers, so I should be able to power all my strips.

 

The interesting thing is, the supply that comes with them is just a 2A (24W) supply, but the controller handles 144 watts, so that sounds like six strips at full brightness.

 

Christmas this year will have a new color!

 

Oh, I have 3300 LED's with the two extra reels...

 

John, when you go big; you really go BIG!!!

GO big or go home!

If only Clark Griswold knew about LEDs from China, they could see his house in China!

 

The other shoe dropped, imagine how surprised these guys are going to be when they find out eBay refunded the whole price.  I just got this message this morning...

 

You could return the item, but the shipment cost is expensive and takes a very long time. Could you pls consider keeping the item and taking a partial refund?Anyway, there are two solutions for your case:
1) Return it yourself for 100% refund. We will refund you after we receive your return package.
2) $4 as compensation and you keep the item.
Please kindly let us know your option. If you choose to return it, we will email you return name &amp;amp; address.

We are looking forward to your reply.

I bought a couple of the strips with controllers when they were listed at $2.88, couldn't resist.  Now that I have nine extra rolls, I'm in tri-color heaven.   You can see the specifications of the two I'm getting a few messages above, should be interesting...

 

 

Crazy behavior by the seller, for sure.  Full refund received one day; partial refund offered the next day.

I think the communication is slow to China, they haven't gotten the word.

 

I do notice that eBay said they were giving a courtesy refund, whatever that is. Perhaps they decided that I was really right.

this thread is very long!   my question about these lights is if i use the whole strip as is , under a covered yard, will it be bright as the sun? or will the 3.5 lumens will be somewhat toned down? i dont want it to be unrealistically bright.

my appologies if this has already been addressed , i havent read every single post

You can vary the voltage between about 9-12 volts and get a wide variety of intensity values, just set it to what you'd like to see.

 

John - I bought a few reals of the 3528's (waterproof) for some outdoor projects. I've searched threads and can't find an answer to:

 

Is there a "bridge rectifier circuit" that will accept either 12vac or 12vdc (polarity observed)? In some cases, I can tap my regular landscape lights. In others, a 12v battery will have to suffice. I'm hoping one circuit could handle either...??

You can do that with a single diode pointing in the direction of the LED.

What he said.

 

If you use a single diode (rather than a bridge) don't you'll only get half of the voltage when hooked to 12VAC? 

You only get half the RMS "heating" voltage, but since the peaks are over 12V, you will get lighting.  You may not get quite the brightness of full-wave rectification, but IMO it will be hard to tell the difference.

 

With 18 Vac and a single diode you get the RMS voltage (RMS voltage is the effective voltage for power in a load)  Vpeak/2. So for 18vac, Vpeak is 25.45 so the RMS voltage is 12.72 Vrms.

If you use a full wave bridge and 18 Vrms, the RMS voltage is Vpeak/sq root of 2. So Vrms in this case is 18 Vrms. If it's a 12 Vdc LED, better to use a single diode.

 

I do this with LED lighted automotive switches using track voltage (18 Vac) and one diode which works very well.

I agree with everything you say, but Mark440 specifically asks about 12V AC driving the 12V LED strip.

I agree you will get lighting because the peaks of a 12V AC waveform exceed 12V.  But by ignoring (not using) the negative half of the AC waveform you only turn on the LED strip on the positive half of the AC waveform.  Since the positive and negative halves of the AC voltage contribute equally in using a bridge rectifier*, whatever brightness you get is cut in half using the single-diode method.  IMO you will be able to tell the difference in something half as bright...sort of like the difference in brightness between 30 Watt and 60 Watt light bulbs.

 

Separately, a your-mileage-may-vary issue with the single-diode approach is the LED strips will be pulsing 60 times per second.  And since LEDs are solid-state they will be completely off half the time (during the ignored negative half of the AC).  I think it's an age thing but this flicker bothers some people.  As you're doing this on a large scale (outdoor) rather than in a passenger car or whatever, I'd "look" into this before committing to the single-diode method.  OTOH you could install a switch that goes between full-wave and half-wave and when you want your guests to leave, you flip the switch to half-wave and they won't know why but they will want to leave

 

 

*Note: with a bridge rectifier (full-wave rectification) there is a 2nd diode in play contributing additional voltage drop over a single diode (half-wave rectification).  This complicates the math a bit so ignore the man behind the curtain...

 

very good!

I missed the 12 Vac so then it's clear that the full wave bridge utilizing both halves of the AC waveform is needed. And except for the diode drops, feeding the bridge with either polarity of 12 Vdc will work too since the diode bridge commutes the DC to the proper polarity.

I finally got my LED strip reels.  and they appear to be the correct ones! warm white.  got 3 reels.  so if you need them. the ebay vendor I originally posted, seems to be a good one.  ill be starting my project soon and start a new thread of the construction

Price went way up on the ones you ordered, they're $10.50 now!

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-5M...;hash=item43a6922817

I received my 5 RGB reels today and the IR controllers for $2.88 each.

Don't have to worry about the European power supplies because they didn't send them!

My package was in Chicago on the 16th, so maybe I'll get it sometime soon.

 

My one reel order is "out for delivery."

 

RichO's post has me wondering what will be inside the package?

You'll know in a flash.

 

No power supply included in mine. So now I need to find power supplies. I emailed them so let's see what they say this time about no power supply, it stated it was included.

I got a reply.  $4.00 refund offered for the missing power supplies.  Accepted offer.   12 v , 2a wall pack works fine with the LEDs.

My experience was the same as RichO's only I ordered 1 reel, he ordered 5--no converter.

 

Went through PayPal and was offered full ($2.88) refund which I accepted earlier this a.m.  Haven't seen the refund, yet. 

 

So, I now have 3 reels (900) RGB LED's, controller, and remote for $0 net.

 

 

 

 

5 rolls @ $2.08 each is more than fair for me.

$4 refund offered on mine.  Have other stuff coming so lets see what arrives.

That's the same vendor that shipped me the nine rolls of RGB LEDs when I ordered warm-white.  While he offered a $4 rebate, for a $29 purchase I declined and eBay gave me all my money back.

 

It'll be interesting to see if I get these two with no power supply as well.  I'm actually hoping that's the case, I have plenty of power, and I can use the rebate.

 

Got my  $4.00 Credit for  the missing European power supplies.

Just got mine yesterday, no power supplies.  I sent them a query.

 

Same deal as RichO; refund received ($2.88) for the one reel I had purchased.

I got two reels, my grandson promptly commandeered one for his room.   He was up pretty late fooling around with the controller and lighting effects.

OK, finally have white. Took a while, but I was happy to see 2 wires on the reel rather the 4. But a funny story. I bought one of the expensive kits from the same seller, $14 with the big remote and 2 reels.  But again, no power supply. 

They want to give me $2 for the two missing power supplies, I think I'll hold their feet to the fire.

 

Well, a major disappointment with eBay cheap Chinese LED rolls.   I was able to sort out the previous totally wrong rolls with a full refund.  Then came the missing power supplies, and I finally got $4.  Since I only paid around $6 total, I figured that was fine.

 

Fast forward to my next buy of warm white rolls.  I bought ten rolls of these 5M SMD 300 LED warm white strips.  The quality is, to be kind. abysmal!  They have multiple issues, so I have complained to the vendor.  They appear to have been sweeping the floor at the factory for this shipment!  They asked for pictures, so I sent them this.

 

Dear top201088,

Here is a composite photo where I illustrated all of the issues.

#1 & #2, the voltage and current drawn by the reels. At 12V, the current draw should be close to 2 amps for 300 LED's, however due to the 330 ohm resistors illustrated in #4, in order to get full intensity from these strips, you have to run them at around 16 volts.

#3 is an illustration of dead spots in the reels, there are three of these in three different reels. It appears to be a bad LED as the solder joints look fine for all the LEDs in the three-LED group as well as the resistor..

#4 shows the 330 ohm resistor that should be a 150 ohm resistor. This is common to all ten reels.

#5 illustrates the remaining issue. As you can see the color temperature of the strips suddenly changes from bright white on the right to warm white on the left. This always happens at a soldered joint, so it seems that scraps of the wrong color temperature were used to create a while reel. This also happens on several other rolls, sometimes at the end, and sometimes in the middle.

I don't expect absolute perfection for a product like this, but this level of defects is not acceptable.

I included a composite picture illustrating all of the issues.