Solutions for Power Injection & Data Signal Boosting - Permanent Christmas Lights

Power Injection:
Power injection means running 2 extra wires from the power supply, and connecting them to the + and - wires on the LED strings at one or more places.
Here are a couple examples:
If the power supply is at one end of the Run of LEDs you can connect the extra power injection wires to the power supply and run them parallel to the LEDs and even put them in the channel with the LEDs. Then at one or more places you splice the +/- wires from the LEDs and connect them to your power injection wires.
The power injection wires don’t have to run parallel to the LEDs. Let’s say your power supply is located in your attic (which by the way is an excellent way to keep it out of the elements and make it easy to access in the future). You can run pairs of wire from the PS to several points along the String of LEDs. Maybe you connect in the middle and at both ends.
In fact, connecting power to your strip in the middle is a good way to reduce voltage drop. Remember the power (+/-) doesn’t have to start at the beginning of the string. The electricity doesn’t travel in just one direction. So connect it to whatever part of the string is easiest or makes the most sense for your situation. However, the Data Signal DOES need to start at the beginning, but the power wires don’t. Power injection doesn’t involve the data wire at all, just leave that wire alone.
Why might you need power injection:
First point is you only MIGHT need it. You also might NOT need it.
In General, if you’re using 12v Pixels you won’t need power injection until you get to about 250 Pixels. Even if you DO have more than 250 Pixels you might not need power injection if you keep the brightness down. That’s for 12v LEDs, 5v LEDs on the other hand need more power injection. If you’re using 5v LEDs, you’ll probably need power injection if your strip has more than 150 LEDs. Now, if you’re not sure if you need power injection, you could connect all the LEDs, turn them on and check for dimming. If you notice your colors look dim or just off as you get to the end of the run, then you need power injection. If you can live with the LEDs being a little less than full brightness you can try turning down the brightness until the dimming and color changes go away. Or just give in and do some power injection.
Be really careful that you don’t mix up the +/-. Most LEDs will be destroyed if you accidentally swap the + and -.

Data Signal:
The data signal comes from the controller. It’s what tells the LEDs what colors to be and when to blink, fade or whatever. There are a few rules to remember about the data signal.
It has to travel in the correct direction. All these LEDs will have some way to indicate the direction the data signal needs to travel. Different companies mark it in different ways. Sometimes an Arrow, sometimes letters like DI. If you’re unlucky and your LEDs don’t have any indicator then usually the female connector is the beginning of the string. If all else fails you can try connecting the data signal to either end to see which is the beginning of the string. It won’t hurt the LEDs to connect the Data signal to the wrong end.
Data Signal needs Strength:
When the data signal starts at the Brain of the controller it comes out at 3v, but the LEDs are generally expecting 5v. That is usually fine unless the data signal voltage drops any lower. What might drop the data signal voltage? A wire that is too thin or too long. So what do you do?
The best thing to do is boost that voltage signal to 5v. There are a few ways to do that. The easiest, is to get a controller that is made to boost the signal. Like the DigUno or DigQuad. You can build your own, or you can buy them pre-assembled. I’ll bet you can guess where to find the links. But, if you don’t want to spend the money for those then you can use what the pros call a Sacrificial Pixel.
Sacrificial Pixel: when the data signal hits the first pixel in the string it is bumped up to 5v (yes, that’s true even with 12v Pixels). So after that first pixel the distance between the first pixel and the rest of the string can be really really far. I tested it and got as far as 40 meters of 20g wire before the signal started to degrade enough to get flickering.
The last thing I’ll say about the data signal is that it can be split. You would do this only if you want all the lights to do the exact same thing all the time. To split it, you just splice in a wire and run it to a new string of LEDs. You can split the data signal anywhere along the string. Those LEDs should also be powered by the same power supply.

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[jameswarnock]

FYI, Blue LEDs have forward voltages at about 2.5 V, green LEDs have forward voltages at about 1.9 V and red LEDs have forward voltages of around 1.6 V. The forward voltage is the minimum voltage required for current to flow through a diode (like an LED). That is why the color shifts toward red when you have voltage drop problems. When the voltage at a pixel is less than 2.5 V, the blue LED can no longer light. When it gets down below 1.9 V, the green LED can no longer light. The Red LED has the lowest forward voltage so it is the last one working.

[BGJano]

Great video. Super easy to understand. I'm currently working on my first led strip project and your videos are getting me through the "learning curve" with said electronics!

[adrianvallejo]

11:24 I know why we need to inject power but I never understood the exact reason and after you mentioned each led has resistance and then boom it clicked it's pretty much a resistor ladder!!

[robertalbrecht]

DI is key! I had put in an entire run on a hard to reach gable backwards.. already had wires ran to it and had to pop out and reverse flip around a connection on over 100+ pixels. Good info and just got mine done for the holidays thanks again Drz! Dig Uno and Quad running my entire house from my garage in an old computer case mounted to the wall.

[kinglouiesshed]

After racking my brain for days I came across this and it solved my problem. I have 3 strips controlled by 3 different pins and none of them would work properly and kept misbehaving. Put a sacrificial Led in my enclosure with the right next to my esp and it works. Thank you for the valuable information 👍🏼👍🏼

[TheEddieSpangles]

Thank you. Just finished my LED's panic set in about the flickering. Soldering iron back out the tool box. Top man 🤠

[mgizz]

Great info, Just wondering I have the 232 touch with on board Mic, where can I download the audio firm ware for it

[Finallyonair]

Question. If i have 2 strands connecting and I solder the 3 main wires together, can I just inject power into one set of the extra power wires or do I need to tie into both sets? I’m assuming just one set as power isn’t directional.... am I right?

[mountaintopper]

For power injection, do you need to run both a positive and negative wire from the power supply to the injection point? Or can you just run a positive line? If you have a negative running through the controller and through all the lights inline in that way wouldn't a negative line for each power injection be redundant and unnecessary?

[bronto]

Are there any problems that would come up if you are using a power supply that is larger than you need. Say like I have a spare 60amp to use, but connect it to just a single strip that only needs 7amp?

[jpatel]

Thanks DrZzs for wonderful videos. My home wall outlet is 110 V AC, & hooked up with main panel breaker of 15 amps. If I use same outlet to power my pixel controller, how many pixel leds can be hooked up with same controller ? i mean, does 110v AC wall outlet amp capacity & amp being consumed out of DC 12V/5V controller has any relationship ? how to calculate safe amp load?

[ThatsMehAlr]

Hello sir. I appreciate all the work you are doing. Question, does needing power injection always result in dimming to red? I have a situation where my string just fades to nothing. Thank you for your help. Also, thank you for the 2 data boosters i bought from your store.

[adrian]

Does this works with apa102 leds or wb? Nice solution. Thx

[macmund]

Thanks Got the how to for voltage injection. So depending on the number of LEDs you still have to compute for the amperes for all the leds if uou have one power supply? Can you have two pairs of wire in one terminal of the power so that one is in the end and the other on the start? Or better to have separate power on the start and end [since available power supply is single terminal?

[bryanhickman]

With regard to the Digi-uno, what side is the fuse protecting? The supply side? If the uno board can handle 15A, why is the 10A supplied? How would one wire 5 - 5m like SK6812 5V-60L, when each string uses 90W each? Just getting confirmation on my thoughts on the last question.

[jmr]

A good way to look at the voltage drop of 12 volt versus 5 volt. A 2.5 volt drop is 50% when using 5 volt but it's only a 20% drop at 12 volt.

[G.Harley.Davidson]

Have you found any 12mm module/bulb like this that can make a decent Warm White, or only warm white?

[bharned]

Do you have to run a separate wire each time you want to do a power injection or can you run one lone one and keep splicing into it?

[TmCkellar]

Thanks for all the help got my house done!!!! It looks amazing!! Appreciate it

[Kdog]

Okay now I’m confused :). So I want to do my roof even then I want to do like a picture frame around the windows. Can I splice the data wire and connect to the windows or will that now work?