Power supply question

[hoop22]

Forgive my ignorance here, i’m definitely not an electrician.

I have a 5v 60a power supply.  It has 3 ea of the (+) and (-) terminals.  My question is, can I output one of those terminals to a distribution board, where I then wire draw power from for my LED’s? or does only 5v get to the board?  meaning if I then wired 2 LED strips to the power distribution board, would the power drop to 2.5v to each of them if they are both drawing power at the same time?

If that were the case, then it seems like the power supply is only capable of sending 15v via those three terminals and that doesn’t sound right either.

I’m looking at Major Frenchy’s quattro board 3.0 and it looks like it has 4 sets of power out for the one line in which makes me think I’m wrong and each line-out from my distribution board should get 5v.

Thanks in advance.

You need to login in order to like this post: click here

[Sixtoe]

Not knowing the particular PSU, the 3 terminals would normally just let you distribute the load and send it in 3 directions, if you run 1 pair of cables away you’ll be able to draw 60A through it but you’ll need a significant cable to do it (either 4 or 8 AWG), especially if it’s running any distance.

It’s safer to distribute them, if you get a cable that’s too thin it will get hot and catch fire/melt etc. not to say the voltage drop will probably cause whatever it’s powering not to work (especially if it needs a stable 5v).

You need to login in order to like this post: click here

[hoop22]

Thanks for the response.  This is the power supply(below) i’m currently running.  I’m wiring straight from it to my LED strips with 18g now.  I don’t see any heat issues with those.  If I understand correctly, that’s because those LED’s are only drawing 5v through the wire.  You’re saying that if I wired to the output board and then had three devices drawing 5v each from the output board, then 15v would be pulled through the cable running from the supply to the output board? so the power supply is basically sending the amount that the devices are pulling, in this case, as much as 60a with this power supply.  I’d then be limited by how much the distribution board can actually handle.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TXWFSZ9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

You need to login in order to like this post: click here

1 user thanked author for this post.

cdvaight

[Sixtoe]

Trying to put it in laymans terms, so bear with me.

The voltage is (or should be) static @ 5v, those 3 terminals will be connected inside the PSU, they’re just giving you a breakout on the box itself. The voltage doesn’t change, it supplies 5v regardless, unless you have a long cable run, in which case the voltage can “drop” to 4.8v or whatever, bigger cable compensates for this. Electronic components/devices are designed to work with a specific voltage, and only this voltage. Too much will make it pop, too little and it won’t work.

The current / amps / draw is “how much” of the 5v the device requires to make it work properly, think of it as batteries. AA batteries are 1.2v, the more amps / power the device powered by batteries needs, the more batteries you need (i.e. 1 for a clock, 2 for a control, 8+ for a remote control car).

In your case the LED’s will be 5v, and each LED will draw a certain number of amps /watts (watts is Voltage X Amps), so if you had, say, 60 LEDs per metre thats around 18w per metre, so about 3.6A per metre.

So you might not be drawling even close to what that PSU can supply, which is why you’re not running into problems with cables getting hot, generally each strip you buy won’t have too many in a row for specifically that reason (i.e. 140 led/m strips require over twice as much power for the same length)

If you have too many amps, it’s just a big bucket of power you’re not using, so it doesn’t hurt at all, arguably your PSU wattage should be around 10-20% more than what you need so it’s not driven to hard (a 60a psu with something drawing 60a is like a car redlining constantly)

Hope that makes sense…

You need to login in order to like this post: click here

[hoop22]

makes perfect sense!  I appreciate the explanation.

You need to login in order to like this post: click here

[Author]

Posts