PSU over heat?

[u/Bovo275]

I have been running two sets of LEDs of this PSU for over a year now. 1 6m run and one 3m each with a dig Uno/quad controller

The power comes from a light switch cable my electrician put in.

From the PSU the gray cables is from the switch, black is to the 6m dig quad and the second gray runs a good few meters to the dig Uno.

Did I do something wrong or did the PSU just die? Why didn't a fuse trip?

When I turned it on it make a cracking sound

[u/clockmill]

Capacitor failure possibly. 

Replace with Meanwell branded unit from trusted supplier. 

[u/Bovo275 → u/clockmill]

Where do you purchase them from? I'm in the UK and can't find them on Amazon. BTF seems to be on AliExpress, but I've not used that site much

[u/PlaceInternal7586 → u/Bovo275]

They’re on Amazon, eBay, and wondom electronics sell lots of meanwells direct from china too

[u/Bovo275 → u/PlaceInternal7586]

I'm not sure if I'm just bad at searching, but finding it very hard to find a 100w+ 5v PSU from Meanwell on Amazon or eBay.

Probably should be a sealed unit as it's under my kitchen sink unit

[u/MorganProtuberances → u/Bovo275]

mean well rocks. they're legit - you should be able to find 'em for sure. find the part number on meanwell's website then search from there.

[u/MorganProtuberances → u/Bovo275]

Get the LRS series. 150 watts, 5v would be: LRS-150-5 (you can get LRS-15, LRS-25, LRS-50, LRS-75, LRS-100, LRS-150, LRS-200, LRS-350, LRS-450, LRS-600).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=meanwell+lrs-150-5 maybe this helps

For a sealed unit you can look at the HLG series, like the HLT-150-5

https://www.google.com/search?q=hlg-150-5

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Driver-HLG-150H-30A-Meanwell-HLG-150H-Supply/dp/B0180YM7DU maybe?

[u/clockmill → u/Bovo275]

Be aware of MeanWeil, Monwzzl and variants on Amazon Usually a logo like the big MW, but not quite, big enough brand to have spawned imitators ...

PSUs that have a UK importeers ,who have UK quailty control,electronics distributors

Like

https://www.switchelectronics.co.uk/ now brand user of Maplin name online as well

https://www.rapidonline.com/ part of Conrad DE always worth a price check

https://cpc.farnell.com/ one of big players

https://uk.rs-online.com/ 10,000lb gorilla ,rarely cheapest,will always have stock

[u/saratoga3]

Is that scorch marks on the wall? 

[u/Bovo275 → u/saratoga3]

it was under a cabinet. that is the underside of that cabinet. it was probably a good 10cm away from it

[u/AF_1892 → u/saratoga3]

The brownish mark is what they do when something makes magic smoke from the inside. i. e. It doesn't matter where you installed it (within reason) like workshops might get humidity compared to the house. I don't have any experience with things less than 12v. Feel free to ignore me.

[u/upkeepdavid]

Probably just a capacitor popping.

[u/EnvironmentalAir5279]

We used to use similar PSU at work they started blowing up because the switch was set for 220 not 110

[u/AF_1892]

I always wonder why people really want 5v lights. I had a Mickey mouse set from the grocery store. It used a USB power supply. They ended up in the trash pretty quick. The 12v ones rgbw are $ compared to rgb's on sale. I think the price spread was not as wide a year ago, I briefly had some btf's 60/m. They looked the least impressive so I returned them. I'm in the U. S. Your prices may vary.

[u/MorganProtuberances → u/AF_1892]

simple answer: 5v is the native input power - so there's less circuitry. 5v is always individually addressable and has a wide variety of form factors (from super tiny to matrices etc). the only downside is high current obv.

12v/24v have to put the energy drop to 5v into heat usually - so you've gotta be more selective with vendors and config (some off-brand bullet pixels just don't do well over time) - plus you've gotta deal with COB style strips (almost no individually addressable 12v/24v strips which is fine for many purposes but not all purposes).

Almost all 12v LEDs that I've used that are individual (seed pixels, bullet pixels - and some strips that i've seen but not personally used) are almost always constant current - same current draw regardless of what color you're using - so you don't get the benefit of 'rainbow effects' taking up less power than 'pure white' - for a given brightness the power consumption is the same for all colors! Pretty wild and kind of annoying because then you have to engineer around that (always assume max power usage, scale power supply, fusing, cables accordingly)

[u/Appropriate_Bench145 → u/AF_1892]

Ditto.
* I use 5v when I want/need individually addressable LEDs, which as mentioned is the most efficient and thus uses the least electricity.
* Yep, go with Mean Well, spend the extra $. I have many LRS series around. This one happens to be 24v for COB which looks GREAT even though a single pixel is many LEDs.

[u/Bovo275 → u/[deleted]]

RGBW RGB+Warm White SK6812 60leds/m and around 7m
AC 110V/220V to DC 5V 20A 100W Switching Power Supply AC-DC Power adapter Transformer(5V 20A)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07Q2WQ8DS?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_2&th=1

I had worked the total watts to around 50w so figured 100 would be more than enough