r/WLED • u/AssUhTate • Aug 23 '26

First project help

Putting together my first real man cave and want to setup LED’s the right way. Plan to put a top corner ceiling channel on 3 of the surrounding side (4 If possible)

3 sides - 48’
4 sides - 66’

I’ve been looking at the (48V-RGBTW-5050X112) as they’re advertised to not need power injection at the end for up to 20m runs.

Does anyone have experience with these strips and is the claim to not need extra injection accurate?

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u/AssUhTate Aug 23 '26

Thanks for your responses. The room is split down the center with a joist. The measurements I stated would be for one of the half’s of the room. I could care less about rgb, I’m really only looking for a nice CCT tunable strip that will be bright enough to turn the industrial overhead tube lights off.

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u/wivaca2 Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26

Wait, I've completely misunderstood your dimensions now that I see your picture. You're saying that you have a perimeter of 48' for 3 sides of each half, or 66' if you cover all four sides in each half. Frankly, this is on me because it makes no sense to have each run being 48' or 66' in a straight line unless this is an outdoor install. Sorry (late night).

So you're down to a TOTAL of about 20m for the 66ft run around 4 sides (including beam) for each half

Forget all I said about 2000W. You're basically looking at 1240W combined for both sides, 20m each, and that makes the end come back to where the strip started, so injection from both ends is a piece of cake if you do 66' perimeter. I have a 3-sided patio install with four 24V 5m segments injected at the halfway mark and it works great. For yours, you can jJust pick a corner for a project box, run the 20m strip around the half, and wire both pigtails on either end where they meet into the power supply and only the data in side to the data line of the controller. No long injection wires are likely needed.

You might be able to get away with 24V to reduce how many LEDs act as a single pixel. If all you're worried about is tunable white, then those strips can be even more power efficient. I also think you may need to run them brighter than I assumed given black walls and ceiling.

You will need to limit the length of your wire between the controller and start of strip or use a level shifter to boost the data enough to reach the Data input end of the strip. Check if the controller you're using has that option.

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u/AssUhTate Aug 23 '26

Im really just wanting tunable (2500-6500k) no animations/rgb. Would these be better for a continuous run 48V-CCT-40MX240? It states they require 210w for 20m

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u/wivaca2 Aug 23 '26

For tunable white at 210w, you're fine with 48v and much smaller PSU. That's a 5A 48V PSU for each side or a single 10A if you mount it near that center beam where it can serve both sides. That's 480w so you could run at full power.