Another DIY poster/marquee light-box - Page 6

I am wondering if something like this is more of what I should be using vs the "laptop style" PS I got.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/High-Quality...ht_3409wt_1163


The other thought would be if I should use 5 of these 2A ones or should I just get 1 10A or 20A one to power all 5 frames. They are all next to each other on the same wall so location/spacing would not be an issue.

Greg

That's a much nicer looking PS than what I ended up with.

I can tell you the "brick" gets very hot to the touch -- enough to burn your hands. The plug at the wall is also very hot .. not enough to burn your hand but enough to tell you something is wrong. The plug to the frame also gets hot but again not enough to burn you.

I think I will order one of these for a test and see what happens.

Thanks.

Greg

Gentlemen,

I was able to take some time last night to perform my own test. I brought 2 of my frames down to my living room while I was putting some finishing touches on my final frame and doing some things around the house and let both frames run for over an hour. I checked each one periodically (~ every 15 minutes or so) and definitely did not see any of the same issues that Greg was seeing with his. While I will agree that the power “bricks” would get warm, at no point were they substantially hot. There was no noticeable heat either at the plug into the quick connect for the frame or at the plug going into the wall. I still have to other frame’s that I need to check, but this problem has intrigued me as I believe that we both ordered the same power supplies around the same time from LED lands. Just to verify this was the power supply that I purchased: http://www.ebay.com/itm/270895151649...9#ht_852wt_952
If you ordered the same power supply I would be very interested to know what is causing yours to fail while mine stay cool? I can say that I only have 2 “home runs” ran back to my plug as I had soldered the ends of 2 strips together along with my wires (the problem with the LEDs getting dimmer is a function of the length of the LED strips themselves and seeing a voltage drop over that length, but you can still power 2 strips with one set of wires directly connected to both strips). This seems to be the only difference in out setups……

DaDeuce,

Thanks for checking into this.

I hope its not because I have 4 home run lines vs your 2 as I would hate redo the wiring yet again. However it does seem as though that is our only difference seeing that I ordered the same PS as you. Unfortunately 1 of the ones I received is a different brand than the others but it exhibits the same behavior so I am guessing it is the wiring.

Thanks for checking your setups out for me.

Greg

I am wondering if there is a crossed wire somewhere in Greg's setup. I would double check everything and make absolutely sure you have positive to positive and negative to negative on ALL connections.

You are drawing way too much current for what is there, but not enough to show a dead short. I expect that one led run is wired backwards.

I would agree, but I believe the LEDs are polarity sensitive and would not function if the wires were crossed. Unless the strips are connected in some other way to carry the power from another strip over to the strip that is wired backwards (I.e. end clips or strip soldered together).

Greg,
Any other insight to how your setup is wired? Did you solder your wires directly to the ends of the strips or did you use the supplied wires that were already present and wire nut them together? For my setup I removed all of the supplied wires, but if you left them on and didn't use them Jayn_j might be correct that these wires are touching each other and creating a short.

Checked them before I mounted them to be sure and nothing crossed.

I can also tell you that if they are crossed the LEDs don't light up ... found this out in my initial wiring.

I will look them over again to be sure but I can't imagine that all 5 frames are wired wrong causing all 5 PSes to run hot.

Greg

Greg,

If you have any led strips left I would be curious to see how they effect the PS when connected to it. This should also help to tell you if its a load issue. If the PS still gets hot you know it wasn't your wiring, etc. But if it stays cool with one strip odd are it does lie in your wiring.

Well it has to be the wiring as I have 2 Blue LED strips from the same seller with the same power supply and it has been running 24/7 for a few weeks (lights on my riser) and it is only barely warm.

Greg

Nope I removed the wires that were on there, soldered new ones to it that were longer then wire nutted the 4 reds together with the red from the power adapter, then wire nutted the 4 whites together with the white from the power adapter. Plugged it all and let it go.

LED strips do not touch each other and the ends (where the wires are soldered on) are all covered in electrical tape to avoid any other contact with one another.

Greg

One more idea to confirm if it has something to do with the wiring.... Swap the power supply from these blue leds and plug one into your frame and see if it also gets hot. If it does then its the wiring, if it doesn't you know its the power supply(s).

Well I am not sure what's going on as I wired up a whole new frame last night and still have the same problem with all the PSes I have.

I made sure I checked, rechecked, and then checked again each and every connection to make sure there are no crossed wires. The PSes don't seem to get as hot as they do on my other frames but they still get hot enough to burn your hands.

At this point I will wait til the other PS cuzed suggested arrives and then try that one.

Greg

Try plugging the PS into the wall, but not into the frame. If it still gets hot, that would point toward an internal short in the PS itself.

If you have a multimeter with an ammeter function that goes up to 10 amps, you could try and break the positive lead and take a current measurement of the lightbox.

Tried this and it didn't heat up at all.

I am at a loss here as I have no idea what it could be.

The LED strips can only be wired one way and work so I know there are no crossed wires anywhere. Also each wire is soldered to the LED strip and then wrapped in electrical tape so there shouldn't be any issues there either.

I am using 16 gauge wire to connect the strips to the power connector, could that be it?

This is the oddest thing I ever encountered.

Greg

16 Ga should be OK, although I probably would have used 14 Ga. A smaller wire would show up as a higher resistance. This would result in limiting current in the power supply. The wire would be hotter, but the power supply would be marginally cooler.

I will admit to being stumped as well. Something is not working as described. Either:
1. the power supply is not designed for the specified current load.
2. The current load is higher than described. Remember that the current adds with each run you supply. If the LEDs are speced at 1A per meter and you use four one meter runs wired in parallel, you will be drawing 4A total.
3. The LED manufacturer may be inaccurate in his load ratings.
4. There is a high resistance short in the wiring outside of the LED runs themselves.

I need to diffuse the light a little because I am using flouresent lighting. I was thinking of spraying the rear plastic sheet that comes with the spotlight frames with rust-oleum frost spray. I was wondering if anyone has used that and if it works to diffuse the light and avoid the bulb showing thru the poster. If it works i think it would be a cheap alternative.

Haven't used that but what I am using is a frost white piece of acrylic that Cuzed posted back on page 2 I think. Works great and diffuses the light perfectly. This is really important when using the LEDs since their light is more focused than a florescent tube.



HD didn't have any small rolls of 14g in stock when I needed it a week ago (could have gotten a 250 foot roll though).

Odd thing is DaDeuce is using the same stuff from the same seller as me. Only difference is he only has 2 home run lines to the power adapter vs. my four. Meaning he wired 2 LED strips together (strip to strip) and then did the same with the other 2 but is powering those 2 strips with home run lines.

Greg

Another item to note; I am using 22 or 24 gauge wires (not that I think it would make a difference).

The thing that continually throws me is the fact that all of your frames are exhibiting the same condition. If it were just an isolated frame I would lean towards some kind of wiring issue, but the fact that all seem to get hot doesn't make any sense to me unless it is either a large error that you made (which doesn't sound likely as I think you've ran through all the basic scenarios), or all your power supplies have share the same deficiency (again seems unlikely......)

My poster frame feels pretty heavy. Not sure what to use to hang it.

I used small 1/4" eye bolt in each side of the frame ~8" from the top. Tied braided steel picture frame wire between the 2. Then I placed 2 "Monkey Hooks" about 1/3 of the way from the edge of the frame onto the wall. Then used the wire to hang the frame from the monkey hooks. It says the small hooks are good for 35 lbs each (making for ~70 lbs total) and the big ones for 50 lbs each (making 100 lbs total).

Things were easy for me since I used 1/2" plywood on the back (done just for this purpose) so I simply mounted mine with 3" long screws from inside the box. Put them into the studs and they are up nice and sturdy.

I also wanted my boxes to sit nice and flush on the wall with no movement since mine are in the theater room and the vibrations from the sub and buttkickers could shift them around if they were just hanging on wire.

Greg

Well fellas I am at a complete loss now.

I did a new frame "test bed" and wired as DaDeuce -- 2 strings of LEDs wired together x 2 and then had 2 home run lines from those strings to my power adapter and then to the power supply.

PS seemed to be ok, i.e. not too hot, but the second strand in each chain was dimmer than the first (enough for me and my wife to notice).


The new PS (cuzed's PS) came in and it is MUCH nicer than the others I bought (should be for the price) and tried it on my original frames and it overheats to the point where it shuts down. Doesn't melt or ruin anything but it cuts off completely.

Clearly there must be a wiring issue but I have absolutely no idea what it is.

At this point my only option is to rewire all 5 frames that are hanging on the wall so that they use 2 power supplies each with 2 home run lines max to each PS. This sure seems ridiculous to me but I am out of ideas.

Pretty bummed at the moment.

Greg

No clue what's up.

The PSes are still getting hot for sure. Plugs are hot but not melting (only one did that) but this really bizarre.

DaDeuce is running the exact same stuff as me and having no issues. The only differences are what I mentioned above.

I think I have one of those UPS systems at the office and can try to bring it home tomorrow and see what it says.

When they are lit up the boxes look awesome but alas we just don't even use them now.

The new PS (like yours) worked fine for probably 30-45 mins and then it just shut down completely.

Greg

Greg

The only thing I can say at this point is "Poor Baby" as I am also at a loss. Only thing left is to put an ammeter on the line and see what the current draw actually is. Do it for each individual circuit and show they are drawing the same. Prove that total draw is less than the rated power of the brick.

How did you wire your home runs to the 2 strips? If you wired them in series you would see the second strip get darker. My trick was to solder the 2 strips together and then attach the wire to that same point. So instead of having wires-> Led strip #1 -> Led stripe #2 it is actually more like this: Led Strip #1 <- Wires-> Led Strip #2. I hope that makes sense. Wired this way there is no "2nd" strip (electrically speaking as they are in parallel).

Hope this helps.... PM me if its still confusing.....