Modifying Old Blurples for Greater Efficiency...

Was there a dimmer or color change switch? Do you have the manual.

Can you get a picture of the power cord connection inside the box?

Mohican said:

Was there a dimmer or color change switch? Do you have the manual.

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no dimmer.. just one on/off switch.. no manual... this thing is from 2011 and I don't even think it came with one lol

Mohican said:

Can you get a picture of the power cord connection inside the box?

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yes, one sec..

Mohican said:

Can you get a picture of the power cord connection inside the box?

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only one of the switches was connected.. the other was just there to plug the hole I guess..

I wonder how many EB strips could fit on one of these things...

Enigma said:

I wonder how many EB strips could fit on one of these things...

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me too.. if I end up with extra drivers, I should probably use them to run something... rather than just sell them on ebay or something....

Mohican said:

So you could run each bar with one driver.

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Mohican said:

...I would ad a plug to one driver and connect it to all five modules and make each bar a separate light...

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ya for sure, that is one option.. which would mean taking 2 drivers and wiring each to 5 modules in parallel.. that's what I'll probably do..

but.. I'm just curious about wiring the modules in series... like what if I took one of the bars and connected the 5 modules in series.. what driver would I need to run that?.. and if I did the same to the other bar, what driver would I need to run both bars?... I know it probably doesn't make sense to buy a driver for this project when I have these 5 already, but this is just hypothetical.. just out of curiosity..

I was also wondering about the way the drivers were connected originally and if there's any way to combine multiple drivers.. for example, would it be possible to run 1 bar off of 2 drivers combined somehow? what does connecting them like this do? lol

maybe I'm just curious about wiring the modules in series because of how simple it would be and how neat it looks...

ganjamystic said:

maybe I'm just curious about wiring the modules in series because of how simple it would be and how neat it looks...
View attachment 4010359

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Cool stuff bro.

see how ugly and complicated this parallel wiring job looks in comparison?.. and how many more connectors it uses?...

aaannd.... it doesn't work right either lol... when I plug it in as wired above, it flashes on and off (super brightly!) instead of staying continuously lit.... hmm... wtf did I do wrong here??

Sorry for your loss dude Haha! I have an Apollo 16ish...ive been dying to upcycle it. Hope you get yours working man...

You have two sets of power wires going to the same loop. Just use one black and red wire to power the bar.

Sorry I took so long, I was out at a job interview.

Never mind. I see that the one set is powering one module. I think the current draw imbalance might be an issue. Try just using one set of wires to run all five modules.

Is it grounded?

couldnt you just hook up a step-up buck converter/regulator that you can adjust the voltage?

Mohican said:

Never mind. I see that the one set is powering one module. I think the current draw imbalance might be an issue. Try just using one set of wires to run all five modules...

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right. each driver was originally powering 2 modules (in parallel I assumed), so each driver has 2 sets of black/red wires on the dc side, one set for each module... the largest connectors I have are 5 port wagos (is there a 6 port wago?), so it isn't possible to connect one set of black/red dc wires to all 5 modules, because 1 port gets used by the wire coming from the driver... in other words 5 port wagos can connect the driver to 4 modules but not 5.... since there was another set of black/red dc wires, I just used 2 port wagos to connect the 5th module to those.... maybe I should try only connecting 4 modules, 2 to each set of dc wires from the driver? would that balance the current?

Mohican said:

...Is it grounded?

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no, not yet, there are only black/red wires on the ac side as well... but my power cord is a 3 prong grounded cable... where should I connect the ground wire from the power cord?.. the driver case?.. heatsink?...

Yeah start with 2 to each. Only use 1 of the outputs for simplicity to get it working first.

With 5 in parallel they may not produce enough heat to require heat sinks. Then you can place them wherever you want.

Did the light have a 3 prong cord originally? Where was the green wire attached? Probably the case.

I wonder whether the two sets of wires from the driver are carrying half the current each or both have full current. Do you have a multi-meter?

You could use another wago to have two module wires together and then bring one wire from that wago to the 5-way wago.