How to power the LED Strip

Connect the +5V from the LED Strip to the "+" of plug-in connector. Connect the GND from the strip to the "-" of the connector. Plug in the adapter in to the plug-in connector. Now plug the power adapter in the socket in the coupler, or in the socket on the wall.

#979
17 Mar 2019
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TL.DR

The last wires we have to connect are the power wires. We have "+5V" and GND and it looks simple, for both have pins on the Raspberry, but actually it's not so simple.

What currency does we need ?

As we said, the LED Strip is a strip with many LEDs soldered on it. And we have to power not one, not two, but all the LEDs on our strip. From this point of view we can say that LED Strips are little specific about power. What currency we need depends on the number and types of LEDs. Different diodes have different current consumption. In our case the consumptuon of a single diode is about 60mA, the strip is 1 meter long and it has 32 LEDs on it. So we need 60mA * 32 LEDs = 1920mA = 1,92 A which is around 2A. But the Raspberry can proivde us only about 20mA from a single pin. So we need additional source of power.

Additional source of power.

There are two main options for additional source. First and simplier option is to buy an adapter. It looks like the adapters for laptop, but it can produce the needed output currency. But what if you decide to buy another strip and connect it to the first one? You we'll have to buy another adapter which can produce not only 2A, but at least 4A. So you have to be carefull when you choose what adapter to buy.
The second option is to use switching power supply. It's a little bit more complicated, because you need additional power cord which you have to strip from the one side, and connect the two wires to the switching power supply. And this is complicated for you, because the power cord is much more thick than the cables you have stripped till now in this course. Once when you have connected the power cord to the power supply, you'll have to connect the wires from the strip to the powe supply too.

Do we need something more ?

For the purpouses of this course we'll use a strip wich is only 1M so we decided to buy an adapter for our strip. But for making a connection between the strip and the adapter we'll need something called plug-in connector. And the things goes easy for you. Just connect the wires from the strip in the correct slot of the connector and then connect the adapter to the socket.

Courses and lessons with this Tutorial

This Tutorial is used in the following courses and lessons

Perfect STEM course. Module 2 - 1D Games with Led strip.

Get a shiny RGB LED-strip. Connect it to a power supply and smart computer like Raspberry Pi, and you'll have your own playground. Create your own games with your unique rules in only one dimesnion. Play.

That's the second part of our perfect course. You move through the content, we check it and return feedback to you.

In the end, you should be able to program and design 1D games that make your games more interesting than ever. For everybody age 12+, 16+, 21+, 35+, etc