Wiring LED strips in series

I recently got an idea to wire LED strips in series so that you can use them with higher voltage power supplies. So suppose you have a 24v iBook power supply and you want to use it for LEDs, you can wire two LED strips in series to double the voltage.

I made a diagram of it.



Would this actually work?

Don't see why not, as long as each LED strip has -roughly- the same power consumption (current) at 12V. In that case 24V across 2 of them in series would be distributed fairly even.

If current consumption at 12V differs too much, that 24V would be distributed uneven. So you'd have the same current through each, but (for example) with one LED strip at 10V and the other at 14V. That is: one too dim, the other overvolted & burning out too early.

What is the amperage of the supply? That is very important, relative to the number of leds it can supply proper amperage too.

Str8stroke said:

What is the amperage of the supply? That is very important, relative to the number of leds it can supply proper amperage too.

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I think when you wire things in series, the voltage increases but the current stays the same. So if you have 5 meters of LED strip consuming 2 amps, and cut in half and both halves wired in series, a 2.5 amp or greater 24v power supply would be good.

A 65W Apple iBook Charger outputs up to 2.65 amps at 24.5 volts. The half a volt extra would be no problem because the resistance of the wires lowers the voltage.

poiihy said:

I think when you wire things in series, the voltage increases but the current stays the same. So if you have 5 meters of LED strip consuming 2 amps, and cut in half and both halves wired in series, a 2.5 amp or greater 24v power supply would be good.

A 65W Apple iBook Charger outputs up to 2.65 amps at 24.5 volts. The half a volt extra would be no problem because the resistance of the wires lowers the voltage.

Click to expand...

No .... if you take a 12V strip, but it in half and wire two in series to 24V, it will use 1/2 the current.

If you do this, just make sure to use the same length strips for both series connections.

Semiman

SemiMan said:

No .... if you take a 12V strip, but it in half and wire two in series to 24V, it will use 1/2 the current.

If you do this, just make sure to use the same length strips for both series connections.

Semiman

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Oh cool, that's even better.

So a strip that would consume 2 amps when running on 12 volts, would consume 1 amp when cut in half, wired in series, and connected to 24 volts.