Education Home Cinema Renovation - Project Log

Guess what turned up at 16:30? Nothing.

Unimpressed, but not surprised either. Cue another phone call tomorrow morning, another excuse and another promise they'll presumably fail to deliver on.

 

You should name and shame the company, before some one else suffers!

 

I might name and shame, but only once they sort it all out.

I ended up going in today, they did offer to drop them off this afternoon, again, but I had no faith they would turn up, so popped over myself.

The replacement strip is great, the replacement amp is just fine, but there's still some rather unpleasant coil whine from the power supplies.

Whilst I could quite easily crack them open and slather all of the components with hot glue to sort it out, I wasn't inclined to do this when I paid over the odds for them to start with, so another trip over to take them back and I'm getting them refunded and was also offered another 10% back.

I'm not sure whether I'll go down the route of a higher quality PSU to prevent it in the first place, a cheap IP65 one with the expectation the enclosure would block it out or to replace them with whatever is cheapest off ebay and drown them in hot glue.

They did call back just now and say that they tested them and couldn't hear it - which could be a case that they're using different amps/controllers which don't cause it or just as easily have been a case that they've been to one too many gigs in their time (but it's 10-12khz, so that surely shouldn't be it) , so I'm not sure whether or not to expect it again if I replace it with a different model.

 

Input from anyone more experienced than I in electronics would be valued - I think I've found a power supply which will do the trick here: http://www.rapidonline.com/electric...-12v-active-pfc-enclosed-power-supply-85-3831

There's a supplier on ebay.de which is around £40 as well, so will consider that option too.

Going by the datasheet here , it has a fixed switching frequency of 100khz, so should be entirely inaudible. The PSUs I've now returned were totally unmarked save for a yellow sticker saying "S-150-12" on the side, which having checked aliexpress looks precisely like this one, with no detailed spec sheet.

Have I totally misunderstood SMPS properties?

On balance I'd feel better if there weren't a couple of $1 power supplies of unknown quality embedded inside my wall anyway

 

Go for the Mean Well PSU, it's one of the top brands... in the world. </clarkson>
We use them all the time at work and we make scientific instruments!

 

Good to know, will call around a few places today that distribute, otherwise have found it for £38 at Mouser, have then topped the basket up for free shipping (£38 + £12 shipping, or £50 shipped free), with rubber feet and odd sizes of zip ties

 

Glad to see that its, erm.. well... half sorted out now! You at least have the strips, without having to wait the expected 2/3 weeks although it has been a ballache to get them!

 

Success!



The power supply turned up this morning, and no more annoying whine. There a faint whiff of a whine if you put your ear right up to it the more blue component is in the colour, but nothing that will be detectable when it's installed.

Since I can now get on with actually installing this stuff, I've also ordered all of the cornice this morning, for delivery by the end of the week.

There were a few different suppliers all quoting the same prices online, so called round and this place did a discount, and the chap was very friendly and helpful - http://www.hm-online.co.uk/

 

Looks great, looking forward to seeing things moving again!

 

did you put it on rainbow mode for testing, or is that just a camera issue?

 

That is how they look when you look directly at them.

 

Sweet!

Let it all SHINE! (I'll get me hat )

 

They're RGB LEDs, so as Parge suggests, you can pick out individual colours when they're visible, especially when glancing past them.

The light they give off is white though (when they're on white, anyway)

 

ah okay, I've only used white ones so far, never really understood what the coulor change ones were for other than a partyroom (or a brothel.)

If you have them on a Hue like controller, do they act the same as the adaptive colour backlighting on philips tv's? (Which looks cool)
But you have them around the room, not only around the tv, right?

 

No they are not linked to the TV, you use the Hue App to control them:

 

Doesn't that turn your room into a Disco?

 

I've been meaning to do some more research into what apps I can use to control my Hue at home.

You don't find that it turns your room into a disco. We generally have the lights on a blue or purple colour in the evening to make the flat have a warmer feeling.

When you want to have your room as a disco there is an app that does that and is awesome.

 

Hue Pro is a good one for general use, but I don't often fiddle with the app at all and have Hue dialled in to my Harmony activities.

You can turn it into full disco mode with the Hue Pro app through an extension, however there are others as well. You can also give it ambilight functionality with a webcam and a lightweight server, though for me this is a bit too gimmicky.

I didn't actually go for Hue all around for the colour control, but for the ability to control the white temperature (something you can't do with the Lux bulbs). It's kind of cool to have friends around and go for the random hues preset in the app for oohs and aahs, or the "love shack" one for comedy value, but not entirely practical.

 

I'm just using IFTTT to control mine at the moment.
Looking for a good Windows app to run off the home server for more control really.

 

...only application I could think of, but Hue is a bit dearer than throwing a cloth over a lamp once a month

That said, my cinema-room is my living room, so in cinema-mode all light is off.