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I have an led light strip that requires DC12V, but I want to power it from a wall socket in my home. I have an old battery charger for a laptop that has an output of 12VDC.Would this work safely?

Joseph Freesene
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    We don't know. Yoy must look at how much current the LED light requires and can the charger provide it. – Justme Apr 06 '20 at 05:08
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    Does this answer your question? [Choosing power supply, how to get the voltage and current ratings?](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/34745/choosing-power-supply-how-to-get-the-voltage-and-current-ratings) – Marcus Müller Apr 06 '20 at 06:52

2 Answers2

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  1. Look up the current requirements for your strip. Most likely the site you bought it from will list how much current you need per length. Multiply by the length you want to use.
  2. Buy a 12v power supply from a reputable company rated for more than this amount of current. If the amount of current is very large (tens of amps), consider splitting the strip into multiple smaller strips and running them off of more reasonably sized supplies to reduce the risk from shorting a very high power supply. If your laptop charger can provide that much current, you can use it.
user1850479
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The unsafe answer is "probably". How long is the LED strip? The strips I've seen of a few meters use something in the neighborhood of 3 amps. The laptop power supplies I've seen put out 4-8 amps.

If you have no specs but want to be absolutely safe, cut off a section of the LED strip at a point where it is designed to be cut, run that, and measure its current consumption with a multimeter. The current of the whole strip is proportional to the length. If your foot of strip consumes 300 mA, then three feet will consume 900 mA. (I made these numbers up and they are surely not representative.)

piojo
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