LED strip/small lights

[JoeNorm]

I have a switched outlet in a pantry.

On the other side of the wall is the stairwell with a sort of architectural feature I'd like to get a small wire into to light it up from behind. From there id like to go through the wall again to get through to the other set of stairs heading to the second floor to light up the stairs a little.

The details don't matter so much. What I am after is the best low voltage solution to this sort of problem. I'd like to leave the switched outlet with someone like a cat 5 wire, light up a small LED strip, continue with the cat 5 to end at some sort of stair light.

I'm not familiar with all the low voltage LED options out there so looking for recommendations/options

thanks

 

[nickelec]

Led tape is pretty nice you can cut it to any size length you want

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[cburke1111]

Do not use Cat5 to power led tape lights. Use 16-2 or 14-2 speaker wire rated for lighting use.


I would use a 24v system.

diodeled.com is a good place to start.





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[gar]

181215-2226 EST

LED strip lights to the best of my knowledge are basically made up of several LED chips in series and in series with a current limiting resistor that provides a crude current source from a voltage source.

Then there is essentially a pair of bus wires that that run the length of the strip with an approximately constant voltage applied.

There are many of these series LED resistor circuits placed in parallel across the bus wires. Each series string is placed at some pitch distance along the strip. If you look closely at the strip you can see this structure.

Each series circuit draws I current at the bus voltage. Thus, current increases with strip length.

The suggestion of 24 V is a good idea because it reduces the current for a given light output, and therefore wire size to power the strip. Determine your strip current requirement, then wire size based on the length to the power supply. You can tolerate a moderate voltage drop on the wiring. But the light dropout voltage is possibly 2 or 3 times the number of LED chips in series. Without checking I think a 12 V strip drops out about 6 to 8 V.

Power to the light strip should be DC or pulsed DC. I have seen no PIV, peak inverse voltage, rating for any strip. Thus, at this point I would not want to apply reverse voltage to the strip.

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[WarrMann]

Trulux by american lighting has some good options for what you're looking to do. As mentioned, don't use cat 5. Get wire that's designed for LED strip lights. Just google "LED strip light wire" to see your conductor options because you can get pretty fancy with this stuff like RGB.

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[gar]

181216-1925 RST

There is no need for special wire, just adequate wire for the job. This means you need to know current and tolerable voltage drop.

The supply is a unidirectional DC voltage that is either a steady constant voltage, or pulse width modulated DC (meaning variable duty cycle).

A twisted pair might be good for pulse width modulation to reduce magnetic interference. A soft modulation of DC might be good to reduce RFI. A strip light with pulse width modulation provides very good and reliable dimming control.

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[LarryFine]

I use standard jacketed speaker wire. It even has the right colors.

 

[rigginD]

Led tape is pretty nice you can cut it to any size length you want

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I've used these led tapes about 2 feet and been working for almost two years now. The one about just more than a foot length started acting up.