DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

I have recently installed led lights that came on a real with sticky back tape powerd by a plug .after about an hour they turn off .assuming they are over heating .they switch back on when the lights or the plug have cooled down .any advice would be much appreciated
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Gary

Likely a faulty or incorrectly rated driver in circuit, either integral to the plug or in-line with the cable.

Thanks for the reply. Would I need a plug with a higher voltage .I remember seeing somewhere that depending on the amount of lights would depend on the power supply you would need to power them .but I was well confused lol

It is the driver that needs loading correctly, not the plug. If you bought these new, you should have some warranty on them, soI would just return them.

The stick strip LED lamps are normally powered with a fixed voltage supply rather than a driver, (which is fixed current) The strip can often be cut at points so the load depends on the length.

Normally it will say something like 4.8 watts per meter, so look to see what it requires, multiply by the meters used, and check on power supply how much it can supply.

Note VA and Watts are the same as far as you need to know.

Thanks Eric mark.
That makes more sense to me lol.
The only problem is on the strips all the information on it is 12v .the length of the strip is 3 metres .
The plug in am using is one you can adjust the voltage .I think it is just a faulty strip as I have more of the same and they stay on using the same plug .thank you all for your help .
One more thing. Can you solder 2 length together .so 2 3m lengths together giving me 6 meter .but I assume I would need a plug of higher voltage.

Often you can join strips together, but normally they would be in parallel so voltage stays the same and amps get higher.

The white LED is a current sensitive device and are rated by the mA they can handle. When put into a strip the normal way is to have 3 LED's and a resistor the LED's need around 3 volt so if using 320 mA LED's on a 12 volt supply then 12 - 3 x 3 = 3 so 3 volt on the resistor 3/0.320 = 9.375 so likely 10 ohm resistor is used.

So likely there is a point between each set of 3 LED's where the strip can be cut. And you could add more groups of 3 LED's but with out knowing what strip you have this is a guess. You could have a system using a true driver with current rather than voltage control so I can only guess.