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QuinLED-Dig-Octa Power Supply recommendations

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Although the QuinLED-Dig-Octa system will work with any power supply out there that provides 5v, 12v or 24v people are often looking for recommendations what to use. Generally I will point them towards the “Mean Well” brand which is well known for making high quality, stable and safe power supplies. Yes you can find cheaper options, especially on Aliexpress, but if you are running this setup unsupervised and potentially for 24Hrs a day a little bit of peace of mind goes a long way!

Below will be divided into “Normal” and “HC” or “High Current”. Normal powerboards can handle up to 50Amps continuous where HC boards can handle up to 100Amps continuous. I will also try and recommend a variant with a fan and without, if you are building into an enclosure with a fan is recommended since there will be little or no heat transfer because of convection inside of a (sealed) box.

Generally it’s recommended to not use your power supply above 80% of it’s rated load. I very much agree with this but with LEDs they often don’t run a constant amount of power and will quickly change in load demand with varying patterns and such. Also power supplies often come with certain ratings so you’ll have to see how much it would cost to step up one model above it.

One powerboard, One power supply

It’s recommended to never connect more then one power supply to one powerboard. Connecting multiple power supplies to a single powerboard will create a load sharing situation and if the power supply isn’t specifically suited for this type of operation it can create a dangerous situation!

Never connect more then 1 power supply to one powerboard

It is however supported to share a power supply between multiple powerboards. If say you have a 100Amp capable power supply and you wish to hook this up to 2x “Normal” 50Amps powerboards this is perfectly fine and supported.

Normal (up to 50Amps)

The normal versions of the powerboards support up to 50Amps continuous so the power supplies selected will be able to handle that. If you need (much less) power it’s fine to select a lower wattage power supply but make sure to do the proper calculations.

With fan

Without fan

Power supplies without a fan are mostly suited for when the power supply is in an open space and can radiate it’s heat out using convection. If it’s installed into a sealed box it’ll have a much harder time dealing with this (and officially Mean Well tells you to de-rate the current!) please keep that in mind.

  • 5v
    • Mean Well UHP-350-5
      • Able to provide 60Amps @ 5v (400w) giving you a bit of headroom
      • Great power supply including an active PFC and very efficient conversion!
  • 12v
  • 24v

 

High Current (up to 100Amps)

These power supply suggestions are for when you want to use the HC or High Current versions of the powerboards, you can read more about the differences in the boards here. These boards support up to 100Amps of continuous power delivery and thus needs some quite hefty power supplies to go with it! You can of course also use one of these power supplies to power 2x a normal 50Amp version powerboard.

 

With fan

  • 5v
    • Mean Well LRS-600-5
      • Able to provide 100Amps @ 5v (500w)
      • New series of Mean Well able to provide a lot of Amps for 5v projects!
  • 12v
    • Mean Well SE-1500-12
      • New series of Mean Well able to provide 125Amps @ 12v (1500w)!
      • Special connection hardware required (fork, ring or lugs on cable)
  • 24v
    • Mean Well RSP-2400-24
      • Able to provide 100Amps @ 24v (2400w)
      • ! This is a massive amount of power, 110v circuit cannot provide this on one circuit 230v only

Without fan

Power supplies without a fan are mostly suited for when the power supply is in an open space and can radiate it’s heat using convection. If it’s installed into a sealed box it’ll have a much harder time dealing with this (and officially Mean Well tells you to de-rate the current!) please keep that in mind.

For the very high wattage versions it’s also recommended to mount the power supplies to a metal plate (with some thermal compound material) to increase the surface area for heat dissipation.

  • 5v
    • UHP-500-5
    • Does not exist, the Mean Well UHP-500-5 comes close
      • Able to provide 80Amps @ 5v (400w) so not able to reach the full 100Amps, but pretty close
  • 12v
    • UHP-1000-12
    • Does not exist, the Mean Well UHP-1000-12 comes close
      • Able to provide 80Amps @ 12v (1000w) so not able to reach the full 100Amps, but pretty close
  • 24v
    • Mean Well UHP-2500-24
      • Able to provide 104.2Amps @ 24v (2500w)
      • ! This is a massive amount of power, 110v circuit cannot provide this on one circuit 230v only