LED string underpowered - help! Pics

Howdy again all, so yes not a traditional handheld yet I'm in a bind and figure someone here can help. I bought these FEIT LED string lights, and they are massively underwhelming. They have a power supply that goes into a controller, into the string.

The power supply is 5V 3A and the controller says 5V max 4A output

I hooked up an extra supply I had lying around yet it's 12V 4.1A. It worked great for about 5 minutes then overloaded, started blinking and not working right. I'm guessing due to double the voltage?
Is the extra Amp supplied maybe all that's needed? As the controller can send 4 amp max and it's getting 3. Or am I missing something. Or maybe I should send 5V 5A to play it safe.

I was going to order this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MRGKPH8/?tag=cpf0b6-20

Before and After:
http://imgur.com/a/E2ytU

SoUptheEXTREME said:

...........I hooked up an extra supply I had lying around yet it's 12V 4.1A. It worked great for about 5 minutes then overloaded, started blinking and not working right. I'm guessing due to double the voltage? Is the extra Amp supplied maybe all that's needed? As the controller can send 4 amp max and it's getting 3. Or am I missing something. Or maybe I should send 5V 5A to play it safe..............

Click to expand...

LED's require a regulated current to power them properly. There will be some type of conversion within the controller to drive the LEDs at whatever level they have decided to drive them. If the controller says 5v max, then you shouldn't use a higher voltage power supply without risking damage. The 12V, 4.1A supply is 48 watts. If the controller could utilize that high of voltage that would translate into a far higher current at a lower voltage to drive the LEDs, but since the requirement is for 5v max, there is risk of damage to the controller.

When you ask "is the extra Amp supplied maybe all that's needed"...........it doesn't work that way. You have to look at it from a standpoint of power (voltage x current). In your case, you probably got more than an additional amp to the LED string. You would be better getting higher amperage with something like a 5V, 4A supply, so as to stay within the max voltage limit. However that additional 1 amp is only 33% greater than the 3A power supply you used. The increased brightness from the LEDs looks more like it doubled or even tripled in output when using the 12v, 4.1a supply............but it probably over stressed the controller's limitations.

So my assumption is that the LED string isn't designed to be driven as hard as you want it or the LED string or power supply is bad. At this point, you need to get something different or turn it into a project with your own driver and power supply. I see something like 40 LEDs. If each LED has a forward voltage drop of around 3.0v and you're driving them with 350mA, that's 1 watt each LED. That would be a respectable output with something like an XP-L or XM-L2 LED without over driving and needing much heatsink. Still that is 40 watts total from a power supply. Your initial power supply was only 15W. If the controller says 5v, 4a max, then20 watts still won't make this string as bright as you did with that12v power supply. It looks to me that FEIT didn't design the LED string to be that bright.

hiuintahs said:

LED's require a regulated current to power...

Click to expand...

Very helpful! Thank you for your detailed response. I figured the controller would limit it to 4amps output yet yes it probably was pushing far more, just at risk of damage. So I suppose my solution would be to bypass the controller and hook it directly to the strand as that extra amp from 3 to 4 to the controller likely won't do much. I lose capability of dimming, etc, yet I don't care.

When I directly connected to the strand with the 12v4a supply the light output was great, yet blinking on/off every 1 second. There's no controller so I'm not sure what would cause that..
So I better understand, if I used a 5v10a power supply directly to the strand, would I essentially end up with the same result? Since the wattage is the same. Or better off because maybe the LEDs operate at a lower voltage but can handle the extra amps.

https://www.costco.com/Feit-48ft.-L...tring-Light-Set,-Black.product.100306514.html