How much do I need to worry about temperature for LED strips? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago by brenticus@lemmy.world to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world

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'Tis the season and I figure I should finally put up some Christmas lights on the house, but ideally I'd like something I can leave up and change colours for other holidays, shots and giggles, etc. So getting some RGB LED strips sounds reasonable.

The problem, potentially, is that it gets below -30° here pretty much every winter. I know this is problematic for batteries, and sometimes other electronics depending on the build, but for a bunch of LEDs with some sort of ZigBee controller I'm less sure.

So: outdoor RGB LEDs when it's really freaking cold. Anything I should worry about? Any recommendations?

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[-] sramder@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Waterproof enclosure from Amazon with cable glands on everything and hope for the best. A good power supply (Meanwell or almost any knockoff) will have a thermal cut-out that will kick in before the box melts, but oversize it a by a few inches. At -30 / sub-freezing the rest of the time you won't have an issue.

I'd add a temp sensor because I rarely even trust myself. But the spec sheet should provide some additional comfort, the last pages are usually graphs of permissible load for a given temperature.

[-] brenticus@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Cool, I'll make sure I check the spec sheet of whatever I end up buying but this alleviates most of my concerns. Thanks a lot!

this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023

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