I’m planning to run 8meters of 60 leds each. I have a PSU with 5v@20A (WIRE: 22 awg) where +5v and gnd of each LED strip is paralleled every 1m of the wire. (pic below for reference)
While setting up, i’m testing this circuit with only 1m of strip with 60 LEDs. When the PSU is less then 1ft with my LED Strip, I get the full white color for all 60 LEDs. When I install it away (at least 10m away from my PSU), I get voltage drop.
Initial Troubleshooting:
1.) After the 10m, I did Power Injection of +5v on the start middle and end -> No effect
AWG 22 seems way to thin there to me. Personally I wouldn’t use anything below AWG 16 when there’s up to 20A running through.
And because of voltage drop I would recommend keeping the PSU closer to the leds - 10m cables and 5v is… not a very promising combination, I think.
The 5Vdc power wiring is a problem for many (if not all) beginners with addressable LEDs.
The assumption that wires are pure conductors is wrong. All wires have resistance. The smaller the cross section of the wires (or the higher the wire gage is) the more resistance by linear foot you will get. If you double the length of a wire, you will double its total resistance.
Total wire resistance combined with current (amps) means voltage drop. More resistance means more voltage drop. More current means more voltage drop.
Here is a tool that can help you to figure out how much voltage drop to expect in a given setup:
Typically I always aim at getting the 5VDC to never drop below 4.5VDC anywhere in my setup. You may be able to achieve acceptable results with a higher voltage drop but I would not. https://www.calculator.net/voltage-drop-calculator.htmld
For your setup, you indicate 8 strips of 60 LEDs. Each strip would draw about 60 X 45 milliamps = 2,7 amps if you set all 60 LEDs to full brightness white.
So between the PSU and 1st strip you have 8 X 2,7 amps of current flowing. That is 21.6 amps. Note that your PSU may have problems if all 8 strips are being set to full brightness white. What is the length between PSU and 1st strip ?
So between the 1st strip and 2nd strip you have 7 X 2,7 amps flowing, that is 18.9 amps on 1 meter of wires.
Next is between the 2nd strip and 3rd strip you have 6 X 2,7 amps flowing, that is 16.2 amps on 1 meter of wires.
etc… etc…
As you can see you may be able to use smaller wire at the end.
Also be careful, there is a voltage drop that will happen also in the length of the strip so be mindful of that !
10m of awg is about 1/2 ohm. That means you loose about 1/2 v per amp transported. 1m of strip eat some 3 amp so you loose 1.5 v out of 5 and the strip will stop working. With double the diameter you loose only some 0.4v.
