Multi color led lights

[uncle sticky]

I think we've all seen those 16 foot programmable led strips, right? Multi-color, comes with the little controller. Now I know that these are 12 volt, and the little white box that has the remote receiver and power claims that it puts out as much as 6 amps, but I'm not sure about power usage.

If I go direct to a 12 volt battery, bypassing the little plug in that steps me down from 120 to 12, how many amps per hour will a string use?
If I use the little converter box, and I go from a 12 volt battery, to an inverter (which is about 85% efficient) which takes me to 120 volts, then back down through the converter box to 12 volts, am I using a lot more amps?

I'm hoping to power about ten of the strings, plus some other led stuff, off of a 100 amp hour deep cycle. So, if the lights are all about 1 amp per string, then I'm good for an evening of fun, no problem. If however, the power usage goes up significantly due to all the mambo jambo I just described, maybe not so much. Then, I'm either soldering the power poxes to wire to skip the little plug in converter, or I'm running a generator on the car.

[mooserider]

Depends on how bright you run the lights, how many colors you have turned on at the same time, and how many strips you are running.

The Philly Phreak Show has been using these, cut to various lengths to fit our displays, at PDF and PEX (east coast regionals). We are planning to do the same at Burning Man. Note the 6 ampere rating is when everything on a full uncut 16-foot-long LED strip is turned on to full (RGB mix that looks white). Then you can use the battery capacity formulas (quoted in many other threads) to figure out how many hours you would get from a given amp-hour-sized battery bank for the number of amperes your light strip is drawing. Make sure to account for no more than 50% discharge on lead-acid batteries if you expect them to take a charge again.

[spacetime]

Are these the lights that line many of the big sound cars, i.e. Kalliope?

Is there a reasonable battery to power this kit and make it ultra portable, such as to decorate a bike?

[uncle sticky]

My big question is really about the inverter. I get that if you're going to run a 120 V appliance off of the 12 full battery you're going to drain it very quickly possibly at a10 x-rate if you look at the calculation. but I'm trying to figure out is if running a 12 V through an inverter and back to a twelvefold system will have the same kind of draw

[Popeye]

My big question is really about the inverter. I get that if you're going to run a 120 V appliance off of the 12 full battery you're going to drain it very quickly possibly at a10 x-rate if you look at the calculation. but I'm trying to figure out is if running a 12 V through an inverter and back to a twelvefold system will have the same kind of draw

Yes, you will. Plus you will have inverter loss.
Everybody seems to be confused by this, do your figureing in watts instead of amps. Power in watts is = current times volts. Watts will stay the same powering by AC or DC. (Not quite true but true enough). Watts is power, what it takes to do the work or shine a light. If voltage goes from 120 to 12, a 10 fold decrease, the amps will have to have a 10 fold increase to keep the lights at the same brightness.
You said the inverter loss was 15%, that is probably a little high- 80-85% was a good figure 20 or 30 years ago but electronics have improved since then.

[mooserider]

My big question is really about the inverter. I get that if you're going to run a 120 V appliance off of the 12 full battery you're going to drain it very quickly possibly at a10 x-rate if you look at the calculation. but I'm trying to figure out is if running a 12 V through an inverter and back to a twelvefold system will have the same kind of draw

The thing about those LED strips is that you don't need or want to use an inverter and AC adapter (with all the inefficiency losses thereof); the controller takes 12 volts DC, so you can get a cable that has the coaxial low-voltage power plug on it, and either bare wires or a suitable low-voltage connector (Anderson powerpole or cigarette lighter plug) to get to the batteries. I suggest some type of connector, so you can easily swap out batteries to recharge them. The power rating on the controller is the current limit you need to watch, not the output of the AC adapter. And those controllers are strong enough to do two to three 16-foot strips of LEDs daisy-chained together on one controller.

My setup uses a triple cigarette lighter socket (bought at an auto-parts store) connected to the battery, and a coaxial-plug to cigarette-lighter-plug cable bought from Cobra Electronics (one of the few companies still big in the CB business, and therefore providing 12v power cords that don't terminate at a 5V USB connector). I can run three controllers directly off one battery (with no DC-to-AC and AC-to-DC conversion losses) with that setup. Each battery is set up with the cigarette lighter sockets, so I just unplug the lights from the old battery and into the new, then haul the old battery off to be charged (without a load on it).

Now, whether these are what the art cars use, I have no idea. But, considering the brightness of these light strips and the ease of 12 volt power hookup, I wouldn't be at all surprised if many of them do use these 12 volt LED strips (especially since they probably have alternators to provide more 12 volt power instead of just draining batteries).

[mudpuppy000]

The LED's run off 12V, you can connect the controller straight to the battery, if you get the right cable, or cut up the ones in the A/C adaptor. No need to use the inverter.

There's another thread on here about their power usage. I think someone measured it around 1.2A /string but it varies depending on the color you're using. (white is the highest current)

Anyway for portable stuff I got one of these. It seems to work pretty well so far. Not sure how long it will last, but it's longer than I was willing to stand there and watch it.

[uncle sticky]

So, through the inverter one strip sucked about 2 amps in an hour I blink mode. Too high methinks. So I'm getting a bunch of pigtails, and wiring direct to the battery. I have 100 amps in deep cycle hooked up to the alternator on my golf cart. Eight strands, plus led flashers pulling about 5 amps, 10 for headlights. I might be 20 amps per hour tops.