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LED-WIZ 12V LED light strip wiring assistance
molton:
If activating different channels is brightening and disabling channels dimming all the lights, they must all be wired together, I think what you want to do is wire all the reds in their own circuit, all the greens on another, etc. although they can share a common ground, is that how the LED-WIZ works? Check out this pdf from a different led driver
Mysterioii:
It almost sounds like either you don't have something wired right or the board is damaged, and somewhere 5Vdc is getting where ground should be. If you were running the LED strip between 12V and 5V instead of between 12V and Ground then "off" would be sitting there with 5V where there should be ground and you'd still have 7Vdc across each LED and the built in current limiting resistors. That would explain why they don't dim down completely, or turn off when you uncheck the output completely.
I assume you don't have a multimeter? I strongly recommend that everyone playing around with any electronics. Even a cheapy-cheapo $5 from radio shack or something is better than nothing. You will not regret the purchase... in 5 seconds you would know if the LEDWiz outputs are really going to ground or if they're giving you something else.
mattman8329:
Ok, sorry for the delay - I must have been wiring it incorrectly the night before. I did get the wires figured out and started wiring up my project. Got them all turned on and assigned, then I went to turn them off and found out that some lights stayed on. Well, that means some wires were crossed somewhere. I disconnected and looked at it the next day - found the crossed grounds and got everything working and dancing to music and it was great. Came back next day to find no power at all. The 12v wallbrick died. Tried another one and it died the following day as well. And they didn't have enough power to run the lights to full brightness. So, I decided to figure out how to use a power supply. Thought I was supposed to grab the red and black wires, but that didn't kick out enough juice. I then decided to hack into the yellow cable, and sure enough there was a lot of power in that one. Lit all my LED strips (about 40 ft) pure bright white. I am very happy and satisfied now, but I have found that the LEDWIZ get's super hot to the touch. I was wondering if this was normal or if I should be concerned. I am pretty sure there are no additional wires crossed and everything is working as expected. Does it just get hot since there is so much current going through it? Thanks for everyone's help, sorry for the delay in posting my success response
RandyT:
--- Quote from: mattman8329 on October 22, 2012, 11:38:01 am ---I then decided to hack into the yellow cable, and sure enough there was a lot of power in that one. Lit all my LED strips (about 40 ft) pure bright white. I am very happy and satisfied now, but I have found that the LEDWIZ get's super hot to the touch. I was wondering if this was normal or if I should be concerned. I am pretty sure there are no additional wires crossed and everything is working as expected. Does it just get hot since there is so much current going through it? Thanks for everyone's help, sorry for the delay in posting my success response
--- End quote ---
If the LED-Wiz is getting that hot, you are pulling a lot of current. 40ft of LED's is way too much, especially if you are trying to do it from just one output. If you have them split up, you need to calculate the current over each strip, and decide if it's better to use more outputs. I wouldn't continue to run it that way if it's getting that hot.