Electrical – My LED strip lights just went boom, how to diagnose

electricalledlighting

I live in a rented house (in singapore), where the master bedroom alone is fitted with a pair of LED strip lights, and about a month back, when we tried to turn it on, it went a (soft) boom, and hasnt turned on since.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of event and have any idea how to fix? The owner consulted an electrician who wants SGD250 to replace the whole thing..

The odd thing is everything is duplicated, so I am not sure if both simultaneously went bust or is it something else that is common that I am not seeing.

My other concern is that if we go ahead with the replacement, it might just go boom again, this particular light has been in place for 6 months only..

Best Answer

Typically, LED lights are Diodes which are sensitive to polarity (+ vs -) you can blow them if you connect incorrectly or if you over-power the circuit. Other than that, a LED strip is typically quite robust.

My guess is that the power source has blown, (since the leds will require a DC input. You can check this by connecting a 12v battery directly to the LED strip (do you have access to the led wires?)

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While I doubt you'll find anything built and marketed as exactly what you are asking for, you can certainly find suitable electrical boxes to connect and contain things safely, and then do what you need to satisfy an "appearance shroud" over them. Probably the best bet for the appearance shroud would be a simple light fixture (not to be lit - simply to cover "ugly" junction boxes) round light square light Exterior-type extension box Interior-type extension box

Lighting – How to connect the LED strip lights

Usually you use the two outmost connection points for +/- 12VDC on the strip ... and usually + and - leads are marked by printed labels on the strips at each seperation mark.

For connection from power supply to the strip you either use the premounted socket (if any is mounted at the end of the strip) or you solder the cables coming from the transformer / DC source onto the connection pads.

With the shopping list of your OP I would do the following wiring

            +-------------+              +-------------+                +---------.
           ~|             |+ ---------- +|  in     out |+ ------------ +|
 110/220VAC |  Mains/12V  |    12VDC     |   Dimmer    |   12VDC PWM    |  Strip  ....
           ~|  converter  |- ---------- -|             |- ------------ -|
            +-------------+              +-------------+                +---------.

The power rating of your ACDC converter is a function of the length of LED strip you want to use. If I am not mistaken - a single tripple of LEDs (the smallest separable unit) takes 60mA ... so all 300 LEDs (100 sections) would require as much a 6000 mA (6A)

The current limit of the dimmer is 12A which is fine for the whole strip.

If you are using more than -say- half of the strip I would consider more than 1 feed point to avoid voltage drops along the strip.

Best Answer

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