Power for LED strips

ikr88

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Oct 4, 2018
Messages
2
Hello all, a newbie here and need some of your help.

I've got some strip lighting i want to mount on my entrance gate, that i was going to provide power to it from the gate motor.
The gate motor is powered from solar/battery at 24v, which I was going to tap into to power the strip.
It'll be run through a timer so it only operates the lights for a couple hours at night and in the morning.

The strip lighting is 12vdc, and I'm wondering what I need to convert the 24v down to the 12v, and provide the correct/clean power to the strip.
Do i just need to simply convert the power voltage down and run it straight from the battery supply? or does it need some sort of LED driver?

Be glad of your help/suggestions.

cheers.
 

MeMeMe

Banned
Joined
Aug 27, 2018
Messages
125
Hello all, a newbie here and need some of your help.

I've got some strip lighting i want to mount on my entrance gate, that i was going to provide power to it from the gate motor.
The gate motor is powered from solar/battery at 24v, which I was going to tap into to power the strip.
It'll be run through a timer so it only operates the lights for a couple hours at night and in the morning.

The strip lighting is 12vdc, and I'm wondering what I need to convert the 24v down to the 12v, and provide the correct/clean power to the strip.
Do i just need to simply convert the power voltage down and run it straight from the battery supply? or does it need some sort of LED driver?

Be glad of your help/suggestions.

cheers.

Not sure what size solar panel/battery you have (or where located), but those gate motor systems usually have pretty small batteries and panels. They are over-sized for the gate to ensure power, but when you are running lights every night, even for a couple hours, that can quickly run your battery down in winter when you can have many days in a row overcast if not a full week depending on where you are. If it is a lead-acid battery, that could prevent it from being fully charged regularly causing it to fail quickly. No damage with a Lithium battery, your gate may just not work.
 

ikr88

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Oct 4, 2018
Messages
2
Thanks for the info!
it'll be a total of 6.0mtr of strip at 400mA per meter, and 4.8W max per meter.
 

MeMeMe

Banned
Joined
Aug 27, 2018
Messages
125
Thanks for the info!
it'll be a total of 6.0mtr of strip at 400mA per meter, and 4.8W max per meter.

You can probably forget about power that from the Solar Panel/Batter for the gate. Usually those things are 30W panels max (and usually smaller), maybe 2-7AH batteries since you said it is 24V, depending on how big the gate is and how cost it gets. You are looking at 30Watts as you have described it. When those batteries are cold and starting to get a bit old, they may only have 100 watt-hours total storage. Your lights will drain them in just over 3 hours. Even in the sunniest locations, you can go days without sun. At only 1 hour a night, your batteries are quickly dead.

Do you really need 30W? That is a lot of light at night.
 
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