Ws2811 power injection

[pjhalani]

Hello Everyone ...
I have sticked 1mtr of WS2811 12V strip in a aluminium profile for a project. There are around 80pcs of 1mtr Strips like this each are daisy chained through connectors.
But I am facing voltage drop issue after 6 mtrs of strip. I know I have to inject power after some distance.
but is there is any possibility to avoid power injection and place a capacitor instead of that either at the beginning of every strip or at the end or may be both ?

I will be injecting power but after each 10-15mtrs .

Please guide the best possible ways.

Thanks

[MartinMueller2003]

A capacitor does not help in this case. The problem is the impedance of the traces in the strip. You are lucky you are getting to 6m before seeing an issue.

[algerdes]

As the others have said, the problem is the size of the traces on the strips. We have a "Pex Tree" made up of 16 strips, each in a 5 meter long pex tube. We tried to connect two together (using only 8 outputs of the controller) but the lights on the end of the second half didn't match (in color) the beginning of the half. When we put each of the strips on its own port (16 outputs) of the F16V2 (yes - it has been around that long) everything worked great with no color change. Note that it was originally run at 100% for the first years three years of its life. Since then (last 4 years) we have backed it down to around 50% and I believe we could do doubles, but no need. It is working.

So - to sum it up - long strip runs do have the habit of losing a lot of voltage due to small traces on the strip.

[pjhalani]

Untitled-1.jpg

Does taking the v+ and gnd from the starting point of each strip to its mid will make sense (as shown in the image)?
Sorry if I am unable to explain what I mean to do, please have a look to the image.

thanks

[MartinMueller2003]

While that will work, in my experience opening up a strip that is properly waterproofed is a pita. You will find that injecting between strips (every 5m or so) and allowing power to flow into both strips (up stream and down stream) at the injection point will result in no pixel further than 2.5m from a power injection point. This will be more than good enough.

[Kensington]

Last time I was using 12v strips, I injectee power at the end of every second strip (approx. every 10 meters) and reduce the brightness.

[1pet2_9]

I inject every second strip, and use recycled 12v DC wall warts with barrel plugs to do it. They continued to work even when submerged in a puddle of water.