Author Topic: Multiple LED WIZ power ? (Read 8096 times)

spkywlnt73 · « **on:** January 22, 2012, 08:55:43 pm »

Hey guys, I'm running three 32 port LED WIZs directly to the mother board and my computer seems to be freezing up! I don't know if it's freezing up because it's drawing too much power, or somthing else? should I be running these dirrectly to the power supply? Has anyone had this happing?

Drnick · « **Reply #1 on:** January 23, 2012, 07:53:51 am »

Try it with a powered usb hub. It could be drawing too much power from the USB header. My machine gets moody if I have 3 devices plugged in the front sockets that all draw power (IE Portable HDD, Phone Charger and then plug in a USB Memory stick). If I run them through powered USB Hub it all works fine.

Hoopz · « **Reply #2 on:** January 23, 2012, 09:19:08 am »

You can take the 5v from the PC power supply. See here:

http://groovygamegear.com/PDF/LEDWIZv2_INSTALL.pdf

drventure · « **Reply #3 on:** January 23, 2012, 09:32:31 am »

If you're powering all the leds that could be connected to 3 32port LEDWizs, at, say 20ma per LED (conservative), that's 32*3*20, or 1920ma, or almost 2 amps of current.

That's no small amount of current.

Keep in mind that a USB port is specd to deliver +no more than+ 500ma, period. And if it's not a powered hub, it'll only deliver a fraction of that before it either crowbars and shuts down, or worse. 500 ma, using 20ma LEDs amounts to 25 LEDs at the absolute maximum, and that's not counting the current draw from the LEDWiz itself.

Bottom line, you just about HAVE to make use of the external power connectors on the LEDWiz, esp if you ever expect to light most of the LED's simultaneously.

You might get away with not doing that if you only light a few LEDs at a time, but that can be pretty tricky.

When you do grab a 5v DC wallwart, just make sure it's not one of those 500ma output wienies. You'll be back in the same boat.

You'll want to get an external harddrive supply or something similar that can output 2-3amps (2000-3000 ma) of current.

(EDIT) Connecting to the PC Supply with a fused line is also good as in the link that Hoopz points to.

spkywlnt73 · « **Reply #4 on:** January 23, 2012, 10:51:14 am »

I should also point out that they're RGB LEDs! Don't know if that makes a difference, but pretty much all of the ports are being used.

spkywlnt73 · « **Reply #5 on:** January 23, 2012, 10:54:10 am »

Quote from: Hoopz on January 23, 2012, 09:19:08 am

You can take the 5v from the PC power supply. See here:

http://groovygamegear.com/PDF/LEDWIZv2_INSTALL.pdf

I took a look at that and I'm not to sure on what inline fuse to get?

spkywlnt73 · « **Reply #6 on:** January 23, 2012, 11:03:57 am »

Quote from: drventure on January 23, 2012, 09:32:31 am

If you're powering all the leds that could be connected to 3 32port LEDWizs, at, say 20ma per LED (conservative), that's 32*3*20, or 1920ma, or almost 2 amps of current.

That's no small amount of current.

Keep in mind that a USB port is specd to deliver +no more than+ 500ma, period. And if it's not a powered hub, it'll only deliver a fraction of that before it either crowbars and shuts down, or worse. 500 ma, using 20ma LEDs amounts to 25 LEDs at the absolute maximum, and that's not counting the current draw from the LEDWiz itself.

Bottom line, you just about HAVE to make use of the external power connectors on the LEDWiz, esp if you ever expect to light most of the LED's simultaneously.

You might get away with not doing that if you only light a few LEDs at a time, but that can be pretty tricky.

When you do grab a 5v DC wallwart, just make sure it's not one of those 500ma output wienies. You'll be back in the same boat.

You'll want to get an external harddrive supply or something similar that can output 2-3amps (2000-3000 ma) of current.

(EDIT) Connecting to the PC Supply with a fused line is also good as in the link that Hoopz points to.

Thanks for your response! But you might aswell been speaking Russian because I'm terrible when it comes to electrical terms. lol

Nephasth · « **Reply #7 on:** January 23, 2012, 11:37:43 am »

I have 2 PACLED64s running a total of 26 RGB LEDs (13 RGBs each, for a total of 78 individual LEDs). The LEDs are externally powered by the computer's PSU. Each PACLED64 is connected to one of the PSU's Molex drive connectors' 5V lines. I don't have an inline fuse for either of them, and haven't experienced any problems. Very easy to tap into the computer's PSU to power your LEDs, and this would be my recommendation as well.

Green Giant · « **Reply #8 on:** January 23, 2012, 11:50:16 am »

You can get your power from the PC power supply. You simply need any old molex connector you can hack apart so that you can avoid cutting up your PC.

remove the yellow and one black wire. Attach the red and black wires to the 5V and ground on your LED-Wiz.

drventure · « **Reply #9 on:** January 23, 2012, 11:57:09 am »

really, the only reason for the fuse is because everything is being hand wired, and it can be easy to make a mistake.

If you do, and there's a fuse, no harm, no foul, the fuse bites it, you figure out what went wrong, fix it and replace the fuse.

Without a fuse, you might end up frying a rail in your PSU or worse, which would sucketh greatly

Just depends on your confidence level

spkywlnt73 · « **Reply #10 on:** January 23, 2012, 08:39:51 pm »

Quote from: Green Giant on January 23, 2012, 11:50:16 am

You can get your power from the PC power supply. You simply need any old molex connector you can hack apart so that you can avoid cutting up your PC.

remove the yellow and one black wire. Attach the red and black wires to the 5V and ground on your LED-Wiz.

So that I understand you right. I get an old molex connecter, take away the yellow and one black wires, attach the red and black wires to the 5v and ground on the LED-Wiz. And then what? Do I connect the molex to the power supply? So basicly I would have one male molex and one female molex? What about hooking up three LEDwizs? Do I do the same for all of the LED Wizs then? Because I don't think I have that many molex connecters on my power supply! Sorry if I seem like an idiot, but this kind of stuff is way over my head.

BobA · « **Reply #11 on:** January 24, 2012, 02:41:42 pm »

One molex connector will feed many LEDwiz's. Remember some lines have multiple connectors on the same yellow black black red so try to use one that is not connected to all your drives. The max current at 5V is determined by your power supply. Even with all your drives connected to the same line the load should be light.

Green Giant · « **Reply #12 on:** January 24, 2012, 02:55:06 pm »

Quote from: spkywlnt73 on January 23, 2012, 08:39:51 pm

Quote from: Green Giant on January 23, 2012, 11:50:16 am
You can get your power from the PC power supply. You simply need any old molex connector you can hack apart so that you can avoid cutting up your PC.

remove the yellow and one black wire. Attach the red and black wires to the 5V and ground on your LED-Wiz.

So that I understand you right. I get an old molex connecter, take away the yellow and one black wires, attach the red and black wires to the 5v and ground on the LED-Wiz. And then what? Do I connect the molex to the power supply? So basicly I would have one male molex and one female molex? What about hooking up three LEDwizs? Do I do the same for all of the LED Wizs then? Because I don't think I have that many molex connecters on my power supply! Sorry if I seem like an idiot, but this kind of stuff is way over my head.

Yeah, you need a female molex connector you can hack up so that you can easily plug it into your PC power supply when ready.

Off of this one molex you can easily solder/connect 3 wires for the 5v to each led-wiz and another 3 wires for ground.

A single molex can easily put out plenty of juice for 3 led-wiz's. I am powering my two led-wiz's with a connection just like this.

spkywlnt73 · « **Reply #13 on:** January 24, 2012, 05:04:51 pm »

Quote from: Green Giant on January 24, 2012, 02:55:06 pm

Quote from: spkywlnt73 on January 23, 2012, 08:39:51 pm
Quote from: Green Giant on January 23, 2012, 11:50:16 am
You can get your power from the PC power supply. You simply need any old molex connector you can hack apart so that you can avoid cutting up your PC.

remove the yellow and one black wire. Attach the red and black wires to the 5V and ground on your LED-Wiz.

So that I understand you right. I get an old molex connecter, take away the yellow and one black wires, attach the red and black wires to the 5v and ground on the LED-Wiz. And then what? Do I connect the molex to the power supply? So basicly I would have one male molex and one female molex? What about hooking up three LEDwizs? Do I do the same for all of the LED Wizs then? Because I don't think I have that many molex connecters on my power supply! Sorry if I seem like an idiot, but this kind of stuff is way over my head.
Yeah, you need a female molex connector you can hack up so that you can easily plug it into your PC power supply when ready.

Off of this one molex you can easily solder/connect 3 wires for the 5v to each led-wiz and another 3 wires for ground.

A single molex can easily put out plenty of juice for 3 led-wiz's. I am powering my two led-wiz's with a connection just like this.

I don't suppose you could hook me up with a diagam of some kind could you? I just don't wanna fry somthing! there's alot of money sitting here. lol

MonMotha · « **Reply #14 on:** January 24, 2012, 05:06:58 pm »

The fuse isn't to protect the power supply, it's to (hopefully) protect the stuff you're powering. You can pull a *lot* of power off a PC supply. Generally in excess of 30 amps. With small wire, the supply may not reliably detect a short circuit (due to the resistance of the wire) and won't shut down. You can easily melt wires in these situations. Imagine if some fault dumped all that power into a chip. You might well literally blow it off the board.

The fuse is highly recommended.

spkywlnt73 · « **Reply #15 on:** January 24, 2012, 08:17:57 pm »

Quote from: MonMotha on January 24, 2012, 05:06:58 pm

The fuse isn't to protect the power supply, it's to (hopefully) protect the stuff you're powering. You can pull a *lot* of power off a PC supply. Generally in excess of 30 amps. With small wire, the supply may not reliably detect a short circuit (due to the resistance of the wire) and won't shut down. You can easily melt wires in these situations. Imagine if some fault dumped all that power into a chip. You might well literally blow it off the board.

The fuse is highly recommended.

So how would I incorporate the fuse? And do I need one per LEDWIZ?

MonMotha · « **Reply #16 on:** January 24, 2012, 09:13:42 pm »

Just put a fuse in-line with your supply voltage (between the power connector on the PC and where you're hooking it up to your LED-Wiz, etc.). One fuse for the whole setup should be fine. Size it about 2-3x your anticipated maximum current draw.

spkywlnt73 · « **Reply #17 on:** January 27, 2012, 03:59:55 pm »

Quote from: MonMotha on January 24, 2012, 09:13:42 pm

Just put a fuse in-line with your supply voltage (between the power connector on the PC and where you're hooking it up to your LED-Wiz, etc.). One fuse for the whole setup should be fine. Size it about 2-3x your anticipated maximum current draw.

I'm still in the dark on how to run all of the wires/grounds and stuff. Is there a diagram somewhere I could follow? A step by step sorta thing? I'm trying to hook up three 32 port LEDWIZs, so I need a diagram that shows how to run all three. I'm just not getting it! Sorry guys!

spkywlnt73 · « **Reply #18 on:** January 28, 2012, 02:29:09 pm »

Really? Nobody has a picture/diagram on how to do this?

Endaar · « **Reply #19 on:** January 28, 2012, 02:58:02 pm »

I ended up using a powered USB hub to power three LED-WIZs. Not sure if I just got lucky but I've confirmed the LED's all run at 100% brightness, and it saved having to deal with splicing into the PC's power supply.

spkywlnt73 · « **Reply #20 on:** January 28, 2012, 03:05:46 pm »

Are you using all of the ports on all three ledwizs though? And, are they RGBs or just regular LEDs?

MonMotha · « **Reply #21 on:** January 28, 2012, 04:03:10 pm »

Power hookup from PC:

Black ground wire from PC hard disk drive connector to the LED-Wiz "External Ground" (G) terminal.
Red 5V wire from PC hard disk drive connector to one side of a fuse holder. Other side of the fuse holder to the two "bank voltage select" terminals on the LED-Wiz. Install an appropriate size fuse (approximately 2x your maximum calculated current draw - remember 1A = 1000mA).

For LEDs with built in resistors for 5V:

Red 5V wire from the LED-Wiz "bank select" terminal to the anode terminal of each LED.

For LEDs without a built in resistor:

Red 5V wire from the LED-Wiz "bank select" terminal to one side of a suitably calculated resistor.
Wire (any color, but I like orange, white, or brown since it looks like an "intermediate voltage") to the anode of the LED being powered. You could also just use the leg of the resistor soldered directly to the leg of the LED for this. You might consider covering the whole smash with some heat shrink tubing if you do that.

For all LEDs:

Wire (any color, but I like gray, brown, or one color per channel, however a lot of people fairly reasonably use black) wire from cathode of each LED to the appropriate channel on the LED-Wiz.

Note that you're kinda using the LED-Wiz as a terminal strip for bundling the power and ground lines, here. It works well enough if you don't have a ton of LEDs, but if you've got a lot, you may prefer to daisy-chain the power between the LEDs (or the resistor, for LEDs without an integrated resistor) and the LED-Wiz. There are other valid ways to do it, but I find what I described above to be the least error-prone.

The wire from the PC to the LED-Wiz should be at least AWG22. The wire from the LED-Wiz to each LED should be at least AWG26, and you may need bigger to get it to reliably stay in a terminal connection. If you bus the power from the bank select to the LEDs, use at least AWG22 for that. I find AWG22 to be a generally workable size that is sturdy but not too big. If you're going to crimp it, I recommend stranded. Stranded is also more resistant to breaking when flexed, but solid may be a little easier to work with if you're soldering directly to the LED legs (and then you may want smaller wire, too). I wouldn't use anything bigger than AWG18 for any of this: it would be major overkill, and generally harder to work with (not to mention expensive).

Note that standard telephone wire is AWG26 solid, but it's not tinned and so is hard to solder, and the insulation doesn't take soldering heat well. AWG26 solid is also far too small to reliably hold in standard red crimp terminals without folding it over a couple times.

Also, if you've got multi-color LEDs with a common anode, you need to put the resistor on the cathode side between the LED and the LED-Wiz. Everything else stays pretty much the same. This is shown in the LED-Wiz docs.

One other thing to make clear here: the +5V output terminal on the LED-Wiz is NOT USED in this configuration and should not have anything hooked up to it.

Endaar · « **Reply #22 on:** January 29, 2012, 12:18:55 am »

Quote from: spkywlnt73 on January 28, 2012, 03:05:46 pm

Are you using all of the ports on all three ledwizs though? And, are they RGBs or just regular LEDs?

I've got 30 RGB LEDs, which means I'm using 90 ports between the three LED-WIZs.

Honestly I was all set to power them off the PC, but since there was no loss of brightness using the powered hub, I didn't see any reason to.

ivwshane · « **Reply #23 on:** January 29, 2012, 05:58:53 am »

This post may help:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=87419.msg918207#msg918207

spkywlnt73 · « **Reply #24 on:** January 29, 2012, 09:18:56 am »

Quote from: ivwshane on January 29, 2012, 05:58:53 am

This post may help:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=87419.msg918207#msg918207

Yeah but I have the newer LEDWIZ so I think I have to make use of the Bank voltage select thats on the board. And I'm also using the RGBs from /http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/en/ The problem I'm having is hooking up/running all three LEDWIZs together. I'm going to be posting some pics on here today that show how I currently have them running, and see if someone can point out what i'm doing wrong! This shouldn't be this hard to figure out.


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Author Topic: Multiple LED WIZ power ? (Read 8096 times)

Nephasth