I’ve been ordering some of my holiday lights early so they have plenty to time to get to me and I’ve ordered two 5 meter long strands of RGB copper wire fairy lights that are 12 volt and have a 5.5mm barrel jack plug.
However, I don’t see anything in the listing about the amp requirement for each strand.
I would like to run two strands off one wall wart using a Y splitter, if that’s possible, just to keep cords to a minimum.
Does anyone know how many amps I’ll need to power each 5meter strand?
Would a single 2 amp, 12 volt wall wart and a Y splitter be enough to run two, 5 meter strands or will I need two, 2amp power supplies?
Of course being holiday lights they will be on for several hours at a time and I don’t want to over heat the power adapter too much, so it’s probably best to err on the side of caution.
Honestly, when I get stuck on something like that, I just go and buy enough for both ways and then just try it. Worst case you’d have a spare wall-wart in case one goes teats-up.
Eg, when I wanted a real NW LED for a license-plate light, I went and got at least 2 of each of the different types I saw, lit ’em all up, and just picked the ones I liked best. Figured I could always use the “extra” bulbs for something else.
Thanks, that probably is the best solution, even though it means more wires to deal with.
I already have one 12 volt 2 amp wall wart that came with an old external hard drive, and I think it’s of fairly good quality; I never had trouble with it getting hot, even though I left the drive mounted for weeks at a time.
You could try it with one wall-wart and one strip, measure how much current it takes. If half or less than the 2A rating, you can then parallel the strips with the Y-adapter and run it with one WW. If not, then yeah, you’ll need both.
If the WW has vent-holes (or especially if not), a small fan helps keep them cool vs just unaided convection. Little 4”–5” 120V 230V “boxer” fans are easy to plug in and just aim at the critters. I did that with old external (SCSI, I think) hard drives that got uncomfortably warm (to me, ’though they may have very well enjoyed it).