I have a light that came with the 3D printer, was obviously a bit of a quick stick an LED on a bracket above the printer jobby. Worked fine, but the wires were a bit loose in the switch box, which I fixed as it had some simple screw down terminals I just redid the wire and stuck them back in. Sorted. Nice and sturdy. However this little PCB was also on it, and the wires just fell off after a bit. Soldered on. I was going to have a go soldering them back on - but I feel it isn't very secure these, thickish wires just soldered on the tiny board. They wouldn't go through the hole (if there is one) on the board, as they're much bigger than the tiny holes on it. Wondered if there was another option. I'm not sure what the pcb thing is to look for another version that can take the wires better... Or am I thinking too much ;D Any help?
What voltage is going into that board? Doesnt look like it's pulling a lot of current, so I would find some thinner wire to solder to the PCB and then join the thicker wire to the thinner wire with solder and heatshrink.
It's from a plug to mains, which has 3Amp on it. That is the only current/info there is on any of it. Need to work out which bits are + and - on the board too.
I think that’s supposed to be some kind of mains transformer, it looks woefully inadequate… If that is only used for the LEDs, then… honestly… throw it away. You already have a DC power supply that’s up to the task: the printer’s power supply. I can’t remember which printer you have off-hand, but 3D most printers use some kind of 12V/24V Mean Well power supply, often a clone on cheaper machines. If it does use that kind of PSU, there’ll be a bunch of screw terminals for the DC output. The question then is what voltage the LED strip expects. If there’s a mismatch between the LED and the PSU, it’s cheap enough to find step-down converters or 12V/24V LED strips. How to actually find the LED voltage is a different matter. Personally I wouldn’t go probing that board with a multimeter, I wouldn’t take the risk of getting a tickle from the mains. Look for markings on the LED strip itself and google them. If you can’t find anything definitive, either markings or search results, you might be better off just getting a new LED strip - you’ll at least know that you’ve got something that matches the voltage of the PSU. You can always design & print any kind of bracket you’ll need
Tell me that board sits in some form of enclosure? If not, bin it. As Byron said, get a small power supply. If you absolutely must use it, at least print a small box for it to keep your fingers away from mains voltage.
Don’t even need a separate power supply, it’s a 3D printer so he can just tie into the printer’s PSU.
Yeah the little board sits in a janky little printed enclosure. I’ve got a step down buck conv (or 3) for powering the Pi from the printer that I’m going to hook up. The printer is Anycubic Mega X , has an MeanWell LRS-350-12v - just opened it but now out and didn’t check it. Will see it in half hr. (defo MW LRS-350-12) I could look at the PSU powering the LEDs, it already powers an extra fan on the extruder(was something done before I got it)- and I’m attaching the RaspPi to it too. Just don’t want to over load the PSU. I’m looking at upgrading to a LRS-450-24v but have to upgrade hotend/fans and have a step down for heat bed so that is a bit off yet. There is a switch too for the LEDs I’m assuming u can leave that in if connected to PSU it’s nice to be able to turn on and off - Also included what the LED looks like. I tried getting it out of the tube it is in. Looks like its all been put together. But no markings of voltage etc that it needs.
If it’s the LRS-250-12 then it’s a 12v 250W PSU, meaning up to 20 amps. The LRS-350-12 bumps that to… well… 350W and 29A. With everything running at full tilt, and it’s the bed heater that’ll take most of the power, you’re probably looking at about 200-ish watts of power consumption. Add the fans and a Pi, and you might be approaching 250W. But… that’s if everything is running full tilt at 100% load, and nozzle & bed heating elements don’t run at 100% load constantly. If they ran at 100% all the time, they’d heat up too much and start melting things that really shouldn’t be melted! The power is managed by a PID algorithm (or similar) which will regularly switch power on and off in order to maintain the desired temperature. So you’ve very likely got at least some small amount of headroom. From what I can see, based on some quick googling, typically you’re looking at about 15W per metre for 12V LED strips. So… If it’s a 250W PSU then you’re getting a bit close to its limit. Personally… I’d be willing to chance it. If it’s a genuine Mean Well power supply, or a well-built clone, it should have over-current protection, just like PC power supplies do. The PSU could still release magic smoke if overloaded, and there’s always a chance that something connected to it might get fried in a catastrophic failure. If it’s a 350W PSU, on the other hand, you’ve absolutely no worries at all. My printer runs a 120C heated bed, a 350C nozzle, stepper motors, control electronics, fans, and a 30-ish-cm LED strip, all from a single 350W supply. I doubt that PSU is getting anywhere close to capacity, even if I actually printed at such high temps. It is 24v instead of 12v, but that doesn’t affect the overall output rating of 350W. If you’re still not willing to chance it, you can always look up an LED strip power supply on Amazon. But you will need to find out the voltage and current requirements of the LED strip. Either way, definitely do not re-use that crappy little board, it seriously looks like an accident waiting to happen.
Yeah, i've updated post - defo the 350W one. I've got the bits to sort pi, so I think i'm going to find another LED strip that I can run straight off the PSU and just link it up. Hopefully one I can fit in this metal tube as its quite useful with the brackets all done etc ;D
Cheese for the help peeps! Had a fiddle and tested the LEDs I had with a seperate source and seemed to not draw much at all. So tried with the printers PSU along with the Pi being powered from it too. All fine and dandy (so far). Printers working, now to just print a nicer looking chain thing for the cabling. once again thankies
