Connecting LED strips (RGB, WW, RGBW)

The interior of a modern house is impossible to imagine without LED lighting. Implemented with LED strips, it can act as a background, decorative or the main light source. Options for this type of lighting are limited only by the imagination of the designer, because the variety of both the LED strips and controls allows you to implement projects of any level of complexity.
The most important parameter of the LED strip is the color of the glow. Currently, the following types can be identified:
● monochrome: white cold (W), white warm (WW), white neutral (NW), blue (B), green (G), yellow (Y), red (R), purple (V) and other colors of the spectrum;● two-color (with change of color temperature of white color): CCT;● full color: RGB;● full color with additional white color: RGBW;● full color with white color with change of color temperature: RGBCW;● LED address bar: Available in any of the color options listed above. 
In addition, when designing lighting based on LED strips, it is necessary to take into account the power consumption, which can range from 4.8W/m to 30W/m and the supply voltage - 12V, 24V or 48V.
As a rule, various dimers differing in the number of channels are used to control LED strips:
● for one-color strips - 1 channel● for strips with change of color temperature of white color - 2 channels● for full color strips (RGB) - 3 channels● for full-color strips with additional white color - 4 channels● for full-color strips with white color with change of color temperature - 5 channels
There are several output options in the Atom product line that can be used to control LED strips.
● The DCD module as a part of the Atom Hydrogen controller (1 dimer)● 8 dimers in Atom Neon and Atom Neon + R12 controllers● 12 dimers in the Atom Helium + DCD12 controller
Such solutions make it possible to combine different connection options of different types of LED strips with different supply voltages.

Example of a connection of LED Strips to Atom Neon

Illustration

Example of a connection of LED Strips to Atom Helium +DCD12

Illustration

During the design or installation process, a situation may arise where the current consumption of the connected strip exceeds the maximum allowable dimmer current. There are 2 easy ways out of this situation:
1. Use a LED strip with a higher supply voltage, for example, 24V, instead of 12V. In this case, the current consumption will be reduced by 2 times.2. Use control signal amplifiers. This solution has much more scope for capacity building. In addition, if it is possible to place amplifiers and power supplies in the immediate vicinity of the strip, there is no need to lay a cable with a large cross-section, which greatly simplifies installation and eliminates the effect of voltage drop at the ends of the cable.

Important! The frequency of modulation of the control signal at the outputs of the Atom Helium + DCD12 controller is 29 kHz, so you need to choose an amplifier with the appropriate operating frequency.

Important! Installers often use a wiring diagram where part of the tape is connected directly to the outputs of the controller and the rest to the amplifier. If you connect a full-color ribbon in this way, you can expect a noticeable difference between the glow shades of these two segments of the LED strip.

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