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SWMBO wants to replace our pokey little under cupboard lights in the kitchen. All cabling is in place and accessible.
She wants something like these...
https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/KLL5CW.html
We have a big kitchen/diner so need to do three walls. The idea is to put three of these units on each wall.
They need drivers and sales guy has suggested these...
https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/LEDADP36.html
Now, I'm not very good with ratings etc., but the lights are rated at 5 watts each and the driver is rated at 36 watts. Sales guy tells me that I cannot run three lights off one driver, and should get a separate driver for each light. Obviously this means buying an extra 6 drivers at £13.85 plus VAT, which is a sizeable extra bill of £100 or so. Is he right? Can three lights safely be run off one driver or do I really need individual drivers, one per light.
Extra...one wall will just have two of these smaller light on it. That can't be a problem, can it?
https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/KLL3CW.html
Not an electrician... but the website says the lights can be interlinked, which I think means you can connect then in a daisy chain. I'd expect that six @ 5W + two @ 3W is just within the capacity of one 36W supply. Wiring LEDs is different to incandescent bulbs as LED are less fussy about what voltage they get, but need the current to be limited, which is what the driver does.
So I could run 3 x 5w from one driver and 2 x 3w from a separate driver? That was how my basic maths was working.
Not in a daisy chain, just each one run individually from the driver via a junction box of some sort.
The site sells 8 way splitter boxes, I'd guess that's what they're. But somebody who has actually used this kind of LED will know better than I do - my knowledge is based on what I'm planning to do in my kitchen when I get around to it.
The TLC guy is probably right; the lights seem to be constant voltage (CV) (I can't see the 5W fitting listed here- linky) and the drivers must meet the voltage of the string
That power supply clearly says 24v 1A on the label, so not sure where they get 36W from.
The (12V) LED strips that I've played with are blocks of three series LEDs and a resistor arranged in parallel along a tape. You extend or shorten by removing groups from the tape or by adding more tapes, and I've happily run 6W as two 3W strips in parallel.
Just to add, you probably want Constant Current (CC) lights if you want to run several units from one driver. 12V and 24V are typically CV types
Thanks guys. Not being the techy type I'm beginning to get confused with all the ratings etc. Guy next door knows a good spark so he's going to come and have a looksee. Might be simplest option.