Hi all,
So yesterday i thought i'd put together my first ambilight setup but i encountered strange issues which leads me to believe that the Led stripes i bought are probably faulty but the issues are really weird so i am hoping someone with more experience can maybe diagnose what is happening here.
Hardware: Bougth 4x1m of APA102 Led stripes (30 leds/m) on ebay from a German seller. For power supply i bought a Mean Well RS-50-5 (5V 10A 50W).
I put everything together on my tv and then i hooked it up to the power source and turned the power on.
First time nothing happened. Then i fiddled a bit with the cables where the Led stripe gets its power and then the first led lit up but nothing else.
Ok i thought maybe the power cable is not connecting correctly or is maybe broken somewhere so to test it i fidled with it more. Srangly as i fiddled sequentially more leds would lite up and then go out again. Some leds would remain on while one or two previos ones would turn otf leaving gaps in the leds. This occurance kept happening strangly depending if i fiddled with the power cable of the led stripe or even strange if i tilted the led stripe a bit or touched it here and there.
Also random leds would change color and maybe turn all the way back to white.
I then thought okay maybe the connection of the power cable of the led is faulty so i cut off the presoldered connectors and applied a no solder cable attachment. That unfortunately did nothing either. What i noticed is that when i applied pressure to the no solder connector sometimes further leds would lite up but then again certain leds in the beginning of the stripe would go out or change color again.
Strangly after applying pressure the leds would continue to light up further and further along the chain then stopped then i did the same thing on the corner connector joints and again the leds would keep lighting up somewhat further. When i let go of the strip the leds remained on.
Naturally i thought after this surely it must be that there are contact issues with the joints maybe as well that is causing this so i picked up my multimeter and started to do some readings.
Unfortunately this also did not give conclusive results. I measured sufficient voltage before a led that was lit and then measured 99.9% the same voltage before a led that was not lit and wouldn't light up. So it seems that its deffinately not an issue of contact as the led stripe shows that it is carrying the same current for places where no leds light up (but sometimes do with the trick of me fiddling with the cables) and where they do light up.
I also measured the current on the PSU to see if it is providing the correct ammount and sure enough its outputing 5V at the source.
So in conclusion i have no idea what to make of this led stripe other then its not working as intended and there seems to be a very strange issue with it.
Does anyone know what could cause this and if i am right with my conclusion that these stripes are indeed faulty?
Thanks