Just installed RGB (W) Light bars under my loft bed

[sturdy jungle]

I recently built my loft bed using galvanized square steel (little john) and it was lack of lightning down there.

The idea at first was putting in just some white LEDs to illuminate the dark spots, but the aluminium extrusion still got little more room that reminds me to tryna fit WLED in.

So I got myself the thinnest strips profile I could find on aliexpress, the RGB strip is using 2020 WS2812B bulbs, and the white one is using 2835 bulbs, both density are 120bulb/m, and the RGB side is powered by an ESP32
...
Cables are everywhere now but I'm happy how it came out, soon will do some cable management

[marble hull]

"Cables are everywhere now but I'm happy how it came out, soon will do some cable management"

Famous last words. I have a few projects I have put into use (WLED and non WLED stuff) with the intent to clean up the cabling later or make a proper enclosure later. 😆 Yep, any day now I will get to it.

Looks good thought. I don't think the cables look bad actually.

[sturdy jungle]

Thanks man, but the cable thingy... nah it's just the camera angle

The PSU is chilling on top of the wardrobe injecting power to the ESP32 and middle of the strip, looking at those hanging wires do shatter the satisfaction tho

[marble hull]

OK yeah, that power supply wiring definitely needs to some improvements. Too many interconnects for one thing. And "Dupont" type connectors are only rated for something like 3A max. They work fine if you know your project is only going to be running off something like 2A-2.5A (so they are fine if you project is using a USB phone charger for a power supply) but any more than that and you really want to get something rated for higher current. Also while those type of connectors can take up to something like 22-24 awg, a lot of the cheap premade jumpers are only using 28 or 30 awg wires and then the weak link becomes those tiny wires rather than the dupont connectors.

[sturdy jungle]

I see, in theory all my 480 pixels would be sipping at 7-8A for most effects (as said in the wled UI), wire gauges is gonna be a thing here to make all these setups be able to become one with the bed.

Will definitely pull new wires to inject power to both ends also for extra stability.

Thanks for the remind

[serene salmon]

Oh noes, make that even worse, duponts are rate for about 250mA maybe, the wires also. @sturdy jungle This is very dangerous, at best these wires will act as a fuse and burn up, but at worst they will start a fire....

I'm amazed you aren't have voltage drop issus and such.

[sturdy jungle]

Haha, not anymore. I did some improvements earlier, now it's one 18AWG line carrying all the power and branch them out inject to each strip's end, ofc all the branches are beautifully soldered and insulated using heat shrink tubes

The SM3P connector parts where power&data goes into the strip is all 22AWG by the way. As they came pre-soldered to the strip for each meter (120px), ig they'll be fine.

yet still havent done any cable managements tho

[serene salmon]

Ah yes that's already much better, dupont really shouldn't be used for anything power except maybe microcontroller related.

This setup like this is still considered a bit "meh" since there are no fuses and such, but at least it won't burn when you turn up the brightness.

[marble hull]

"Dupont" style connectors are not THAT (250mA) bad. As I mentioned in my post, most of the style connectors we refer to as "Dupont" are made by such brand names as Amphenol ICC (FCI), Harwin Inc., and Molex and are indeed rated for 3A so long as you use reasonable sized wire. I make my own with properly sized wires so I know they can do 3A however a lot of the premade jumper wire kits use really thin and those should be avoided.

[serene salmon]

Sure, I understand that but generally in the Discord here or in the WLED community you can assume they didn't make the dupont cables themselves and thus aren't rated for any useful amount of power. 🙂