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Garage lighting and parking sensor project

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TASan
(@tasan)
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@hilldweller Yeah, I guess they will always be my little kids 😊

On another note: I find myself having pretty long inner monologues, dialogs, and brainstorming sessions throughout the day. It drains me of mental energy. I feel like the programming step is the easiest, but as mentioned I am stressed about the connections. I do think that I'll use a few Wagos just for convenience, but they can't be used to hook up the MOSFETs. So it's those connections I am trying to solve in my head right now. If I can avoid soldering, I probably will. 

I have thought about possibly just using jumper wires and then connect those to the other wires that will go the whole distance. But I'm not sure about the current they can handle. I don't think any one MOSFET will draw more than 2 amps because there will be one per color. So a total av 150 watts and I believe no one color will draw more than a third of the max power?

Anyway, I am also thinking about maybe just crimping the main wires to the MOSFETs and wrap the whole thing in heat shrink to avoid accidentally grounding the drain. In my tests the MOSFETs don't get warm at all, so I think that should be fine.

Any suggestions here would be most welcome 😊

Interested in learning about electrical engineering!


   
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robotBuilder
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Posted by: @tasan

@hilldweller

Any suggestions here would be most welcome 😊

Find a tutorial and practice soldering when you want to make it permanent and have the time, it isn't hard but it does take time to get the feel for how much heat and positioning of the soldering iron is required. Once you get good at it it isn't much slower than plugging wires into a breadboard. Remember solder follows heat. Don't breath the smoke.

A rat's nest of wires is not good for a permanent wiring. The plug in wiring can come loose. I have not seen your efforts so I don't know what they look like. I try and keep wiring neat and wrapped together. If you get your circuit working on a solderless bread board you can transfer the wiring and components to a solderable board so the wires don't have to be rearranged and you are less likely to make a mistake. I use a collection of wires of different sizes and colours that can fit flat on the solderless circuit board. I ended up using the h-bridge example as is on the breadboard 🙂

To enlarge an image, right click image and select Open link in new window.

assortedWires
hbridge
circuit

 

 

 


   
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 Foxy
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@tasan


   
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 Foxy
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TASan--

Could you please give some reference where I can find data for your 24V led strips as power supply and distribution could become an issue here.

I have made several microscope dark field illuminators using neopixel LED strips but they were all 5V and ran about 80 ma per pixel max and there I had to do some careful study to work out a feed system to get adequate current to each section without fading.

Just for background I spent quite a few years in electrical control system design and this is a good sample of what might have been dumped on my desk


   
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TASan
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@robotbuilder @hilldweller @Foxy

Hey hey, wait a minute! Are you saying I can solder stuff TO A BREADBOARD? I thought I had to solder stuff in the open air and just let it hang loose in heat shrink just like with Wago-connections. If I can solder stuff firmly to a breadboard that I then can mount in the box, then I'll definitively do that!

As for the power supply and strips, I am using this power supply: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GFD3FQ4?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details  

I see that the strips are no longer on Amazon. I get a 404-error when clicking the link in my order. That's weird... The name was: High Density Super Bright LEDs Flexible COB Color Changing RGBW LED Strip Lights, DC24V 16.4ft 3920 Chips RGB+6000K Daylight White LED Strips for Indoor Lighting (RGB+6000K IP20).

The link is not archived on Wayback Machine either... Ok, found the part number: FCOB-24V-840RGBW

And another link: https://www.amazon.com/SuperlightingLED-Flexible-Changing-Lighting-FCOB-24V-840RGBW/dp/B0B49ZDQW1

I have no visible brightness drop over 5 meters on one strip, and my power supply has two outputs. So I think splitting them in two and feeding a pair from each output should be fine?

Interested in learning about electrical engineering!


   
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robotBuilder
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@tasan 

Hey hey, wait a minute! Are you saying I can solder stuff TO A BREADBOARD?

No. You can use a solderable bread board that has the same connections as the solderless breadboard.

A solderable breadBoard enables you to transfer your circuit and wires from a plug-in breadboard without recutting wires or changing your layout which is especially useful for preserving a prototype or experiment you just created on a solderless breadboard by soldering all the pieces in place.

To enlarge image, right click image and choose Open link in new window.

solderable

 

 


   
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TASan
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@robotbuilder Let me rephrase:

Hey hey, wait a minute! Are you saying I can solder stuff in place to some kind of BOARD????

Hehe, I was under the impression that I had to solder stuff like you would when soldering two wires together. I have no idea how this basic concept escaped my brain. Of course you can solder stuff to a board. That's how you make a circuit board in the first place...

That was a huge brain fart that lasted for a few weeks. But yes, all my problems are now solved in terms of how to wire this.

One question: Can solder handle the current I am talking about here? 1 - 2 amps?

Interested in learning about electrical engineering!


   
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robotBuilder
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@tasan 

One question: Can solder handle the current I am talking about here? 1 - 2 amps?

Heat is released where there is resistance.  When you plug your bar heater into the mains it is the heater (the thin wire wound around a heat tolerant insulator) that heats up not the connecting cord. If you were to short out the heater the current would go up and then the connecting cords would be the main resistance in the circuit and thus heat up.

So you can have a lot of current (amps) but as the solder would have low resistance to the load it is the load that would heat up.

Remember the equations:

Heat is watts.

Power (watts) = Force (volts) x Current (amps)

Current (amps) = Force (volts) x Resistance (ohms)

It is the power you pay for.  Watts per unit of time.

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-ohm.htm

 

 


   
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TASan
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@robotbuilder I guess what I am asking is if there is any meaningful resistance in solder as to make it not good for say connecting a MOSFET through a wire pulling 40 amps (arbitrary number)? Or will there not be meaningful resistance because the MOSFET and wire are in direct contact? What if the connection is pure solder between two components and they are not in direct contact?

Interested in learning about electrical engineering!


   
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robotBuilder
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@tasan 

By the way whatever the kindle thing is (for reading novels?) it doesn't work with my pc all I get is "We're sorry. This preview is unavailable." You can attach images to your post. See the paper clip and Attach Files on the bottom bar.


   
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TASan
(@tasan)
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@robotbuilder Note sure what you are referring to here. I you are talking about the post where I linked the products I have, the Amazon links were automatically converted to a sort of built-in image feature thing.

Here they are in plain text:

Link to power supply

Link to LED strip

Interested in learning about electrical engineering!


   
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robotBuilder
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@tasan

I guess what I am asking is if there is any meaningful resistance in solder

Well if your components are getting hot enough for heat to travel into the solder then there is something wrong! The MOSFET with fail first and get hot enough to burn your fingers should you touch it.


   
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robotBuilder
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@tasan 

Plain text works.

I was getting this:

kindle

 

 


   
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TASan
(@tasan)
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Joined: 2 years ago
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@robotbuilder I am too now. I even tried adding the links in code blocks, but it still happened. I had to add a link to a text to make it not happen 🙂

Interested in learning about electrical engineering!


   
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