Which DRGB LED strip has what power consumption?

The actual power consumption of a DRGB LED strip depends on several factors.

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These include:

  • Manufacturers provide nominal power consumption values for LED strips, but they never specify under what power connection density these values are true.
  • We buy Digital RGB LED strips to have different colors run along them. However, our lighting needs to be designed with the maximum possible consumption in mind, which logically can only be achieved with fixed white light – but only logically.
  • Some DRGB controllers manipulate the lights. Certain manufacturers’ DRGB controllers light up weaker in fixed white light mode compared to any colored flashing effect mode.

Let’s look at it in detail:

  1. Manufacturers provide nominal power consumption values for LED strips, but they never specify how to interpret them. For white light analog LED strips, we can rely on the EU’s ErP (Energy Labeling Framework Directive), which is the European database for energy-labeled products. However, it doesn’t provide much more information than what’s on the product itself. For instance, an LED strip’s packaging might state that it consumes 4.2W per meter, and the energy label says 5kWh/1000h, which is 5W, due to rounding regulations. According to the cited EU ErP documentation, the consumption in operating mode is 4.0W. So, how much is it really? It’s sold in 5-meter reels and only has a power connection wire at one end. Therefore, when installed, it won’t be 21W but only 12W with a power supply. If I correct it for a power supply efficiency of 83%, I get 9.96W, which is 1.992W per meter, nowhere near the three official consumption values. This example is an extremely poor (but real) parameter demonstration to illustrate the situation. In reality, the more serious the product, the more reliable the displayed consumption values are, but they still never provide an answer as to what connection method achieves the given value.
  2. The situation is even more fluid with Digital RGB LED strips. Logically, as with an analog RGB LED strip, we need to consider that all lights are at maximum brightness. This means all LEDs light up with fixed white light. It’s understandable, even with an analog RGB LED strip, that it is rare (and unhealthy) to light up with white light, and even more unusual if we want to light up a DRGB with white light, as we buy DRGB to have different colors running along it. In this case, even if we use maximum brightness, it’s understandable that every light run or flashing effect has a different consumption value. However, our lighting needs to be designed with the maximum possible consumption in mind, which logically can only be achieved with fixed white light, no matter how unrealistic it is to light this way.
  3. And here’s another twist. Some DRGB controllers manipulate the lights. Knowing that DRGB LED strips are used for their intended purpose – various colors running along them – and not to have some extreme customers lighting up with fixed white light, certain manufacturers’ DRGB controllers light up weaker in fixed white light mode than in any colored flashing effect mode. Since digital strips do not work without a controller, we can’t omit the controller from the system, unlike with analog RGB LED strip lighting.

To finally answer the question posed in the title “What is the power consumption of each DRGB LED strip?” the following information needs to be considered:

  • I chose a controller that is simple and doesn’t manipulate the white light, specifically the LED2017 Digital RGB LED strip controller with an RF 21-button remote. Since it is suitable for operating both 5V and 12V LED strips, it is ideal. Moreover, this type is available with JST-SM-female and JST-SM-male connectors, making it suitable for testing any strip without needing to use a converter wire section or re-soldering for comparative measurement.
  • Since the efficiency of the power supply can significantly influence the consumption values, I corrected the consumption values with the efficiency of the selected power supplies to exclude the self-consumption of the power supplies. For the 12V LED strips, I used a 150W Scharfer IP67 DC12 Volt power supply with 87% efficiency, and for the 5V LED strip, I used a 90W Mean Well LRS-100 IP20 DC5 Volt power supply with 86% efficiency.

Power consumption values of DRGB 5-meter LED strips without power supply

Power consumption values without power supply Nominal consumption value (Watts/5 meters) Powered only from the controller (Watts/5 meters) Powered from both ends of the strip (Watts/5 meters)
Optonica 300 LED IP20 5 Volt LED Strip 80 17.8 39.9
Optonica 150 LED IP20 Black LED Strip 35 25.8 29.6
LEDmaster 300 LED IP20 White LED Strip 50 27.5 36.3
LEDmaster 300 LED IP20 Black LED Strip 50 23.6 41.8
LEDmaster 300 LED IP65 White LED Strip 72 25.1 37.5

The difference between the power consumption values when powered from one end versus both ends indicates, as we could have anticipated, that the 5V LED strip is most adversely affected by the long strip length.

That is, the lower the voltage, the greater the challenge to ensure adequate performance through the cross-section of the LED strip. Nominally, despite the higher power of the LED, the difference between the two measurements clearly proves that it is capable of high performance, but it is advisable to establish as dense power connections as possible to achieve this. Ideally, power connections every 1 meter would be best.

Optonica 300 LED IP20 5 Volt LED Strip:

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The smallest increase in consumption is seen in the Optonica 150 LED (30 LEDs per meter) product. It can be said that the strip design is ideal. That is, even if we connect it from only one end, the consumption shortfall is below 13%.

Optonica 150 LED IP20 Black LED Strip:

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In contrast, the LEDmaster products show significant shortfalls of 24%, 44%, and 33% respectively in similar conditions. This can be considered justified since, firstly, the manufacturer has established supply points at both ends of the 5-meter rolls, indicating that connecting from both ends is recommended. Secondly, these have 60 LEDs per meter, meaning twice as many LEDs as the 150 LED Optonica, thus the greater power shortfall is entirely justified.

LEDmaster 300 LED IP20 Black LED Strip:

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At the time of writing, the newest LED strip in the webshop is the LEDmaster 300 LED IP20 Black LED Strip. It shows the strongest shortfall, i.e., 44%. However, it also shows that among the 3 LEDmaster strips, it provides the highest performance when connected from both ends. The question arises, how much would the performance of the 5-meter strip increase if the power connection points were denser? Well, by powering it at the middle, i.e., at 2.5 meters, the performance could be increased to 45.6 Watts.

… and how much is this controller-dependent?

Specifically, for this LEDmaster 300 LED IP20 Black LED strip, I also made a video when I demonstrated a music-sensitive Bluetooth controller. With this controller, the consumption values set to white light were significantly lower: only connected through the controller: ~23 Watts; – connected from both ends: ~33 Watts; – connected from both ends and in the middle: ~36 Watts.

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This perfectly illustrates how controller-dependent the consumption of DRGB LED strips is.

But I also wrote about this issue in an earlier post when I tested two types of LED strips with two controllers: https://enterior.eu/when-the-running-light-rgb-led-strip-seems-weak-even-though-its-just-the-digital-controller-being-tricky/

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