How I control multi color rope light using LOR
Caution !!!
Electric shock
and/or fire hazard.
This is not how to instructions. I’m only explaining how I was able to control
each color separately in a 2 or 3 color flat LED rope light. If you should
decide to try this it would be best if you have a basic understanding of
electricity.
My first step was to attach a power cord to the rope light
and make sure all the colors lit up by plugging it in to a power strip with an
on/off switch. After turning on the switch and checking that all the colors
worked I turned off the switch
and
un-plugged
the power strip just to be safe. I used the power strip so I wouldn’t have to
plug and unplug the actual LED power cord and inadvertently jostle the
connection to the rope light. Also it gave me another circuit breaker just in
case I slipped when checking the voltage. Which I did and you can see the
results below.
I then cut the cord right in the center between the rectifier
and the rope light connector.
I sliced the insulation
length wise to expose the wire on both pieces. I was very careful not to cut or
nick the insulation on the wire itself.
Now I had to identify which wire was the common and which
were the power or hot wire for each color.
I did this by
attaching my multi meter to 2 of the 4 wires and after setting my meter to D/C
(LEDs are D/C powered, that’s what the rectifier does. Basically it changes A/C to D/C )
turned on the power strip switch and read the voltage. There should have been
somewhere around 112 VDC reading on the meter if 1 of the wires was hot and 1
was the common. If there was a minus sign- in front of my meter reading the leads were reversed. There is only one HOT so if I had the correct voltage and no minus sign, the red lead was on the HOT wire. I shut
off the switch and unplugged the power strip.
If I didn't have the correct voltage I left one lead (A) connected and
attached the second (B) to another wire.I then plugged in the
power strip and turned on the switch. I
used the same procedure above to determine the common and hot wires.
In my case the Brown
wire was the HOT or positive. The Blue, Black and Yellow were the common or negative wires.
The next step was to attach a Female plug to the wire FROM
the rectifier. I spliced in pieces of wire to make it easier to work with and
to be able to hide the ugly yellow plugs.
I used white (Black or Red would have made more sense for the Hot) for the positive and
colors for the negative. I used polarized plugs with a ground so they could
only be plugged in one way. I connected all the negatives to one wire (Black)
and then to the copper or brass colored screw. It was OK to put them together
because they were all the same negative voltage.
The positive I connected to the white or silver colored
screw.
The main thing was to be sure that when everything was plugged in the negatives
went together and the positives went together.
Next I
attached the male plugs to the other part of the cord that went to the rope
light. One plug for each color in the rope. Again I spliced in longer pieces of wire. On
this end I had 3 plugs and only 1 positive so I had to jump from the first plug
to the second and then from the 2nd to the 3rd.
I stayed with the same color screws as before.
White Pos+ and Brass Neg-
The last thing to do
was determine which power cord in the LOR controller powers the unit. I plugged
the cords in 1 at a time and when the red light came on I knew it was the
correct cord. That cord I plugged into the regular 120 VAC power source. I didn't know at the time if the LOR controller would work with DC and I wasn’t going to find
out. They cost too much to experiment.
I checked with light o rama. the controllers will not work with D/C. It will destroy them.
The other cord from
the LOR (it was in with cords 1-8) I plugged into the female plug from the
rectifier of the rope light power cord. I could not use the 9-16 side of the unit because it's powered by the 120vac.
After that it was a matter of testing and getting Val to
sequence something.