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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 19th, 2023

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    • One of a kind hobby project. I want to experiment with time of day controlled LEDs, and see how they work as a light based wake up alarm.

    • I’d rather not break the bank for needlessly overkill connectors, the total for the project so far is only ~220$, and I only sporadically work on it.

    • portability isn’t all that important, but the chassis the connectors would connect to should preferably be as small as possible. The PWM circuitry without connectors are ~8cmx3cm.

    • I wouldn’t mind using connectors with more pins. The primary challenge is just finding a connector with both male and female socket plugs that seems to easy to plug in and out, within specs.






  • I don’t know how aging affects the LED power draw, according to the manufacturer I shouldn’t expect more than 7.5A. When measuring peak power output, I get only get ~6A total though.

    4 pins are for earth with each (measured) having ~1.5A going through them at peak brightness. The fifth pin must bear the total load of the four other pins.

    Having 5 pins is of course not a strict requirement, it’s just the LED strip that has 5 connections.

    Edit: I should have clarified that the 4 pins “leading to earth” are connected to mosfets controlled by PWM signals, so they aren’t directly connected to earth. Each of the 4 pins carries a unique amount of current. Their total current is flowing through the fifth pin. Sorry for missing out on that detail in the original statement.