Power injection, by the numbers.
Addressable strips lose voltage along their length. Push too many pixels from one end and the far end goes dim and amber. The fix is power injection: feeding the run at more than one point. Here is how to plan it the Dig-Octa way, with fused feeds and no guesswork.
Front 4A. End 4A. Middles 8A.
Strip connection points have limits. A feed at the front of a run pushes current one way and carries about 4A. The end feed is the same story from the other side: another 4A. A mid-strip injection feeds both directions at once, so it carries about 8A. Plan in that order: front feed first, then add the end feed, then drop middle injections between them until the load is covered.
1. Front feed
Every run starts with one: + and − from a fused powerboard output to the start of the strip. Good for about 4A of load on its own, which covers roughly 65 classic 5V pixels at full RGB white, or far more at typical effects loads.
2. End feed
The cheapest upgrade: one more cable from a fused output to the far end of the run. Now both ends push toward the middle and the run carries about 8A total before any middle injection is needed.
3. Middle injections
Each mid-strip feed serves pixels on both sides, about 8A per injection. Add one for every 8A of remaining load and space them evenly. The site calculator does this arithmetic live.
Every feed gets its own fuse.
An injection cable is a power cable, and any cable fed from a big supply can overheat in a fault. On a Dig-Octa every feed comes from its own fused output: pick the fuse for the wire on that run (lower values are always fine and encouraged, larger values void the warranty), and the included assortments assume about 5A on light runs and 10A on heavy ones. Two more standing rules: one power supply per powerboard, never two, and never hot-plug LED connectors under power. The board's blown-fuse LEDs point straight at any feed that opens.
Size with real numbers
Design the nominal load with the 50% RGB white values from Quindor's measured power sheets; ws2815 is the exception and gets calculated at 100%.
Match wire to fuse
The fuse protects the cable behind it. 14AWG output wire pairs happily with 10A fuses on the Power-5 and Power-5HV; the Power-7 family takes 12AWG, and wire thickness needed covers the long-run math.
Spread the heat
Interleave heavy and light runs across the powerboard's outputs instead of clustering the big ones; the copper planes are designed to share the load that way.
A 1,600-pixel megatree, planned in five lines.
Sixteen strands of 100 classic 5V pixels: 1,600 LEDs on one Brainboard-32-8L, about 200 pixels per channel over 8 outputs.
| Step | Math | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Worst case | 1,600 × 60mA full RGB white | 96A theoretical max |
| Planning load | 35% typical effects load | about 34A continuous |
| Powerboard | 34A continuous, 5V install | Power-7HC (100A) with headroom; a 50A board also carries it |
| Feeds per strand-pair | 2 strands ≈ 12A worst case | front + end feed each pair, middles only on dense props |
| Supply | 96A fuse headroom, 34A nominal | Mean Well LRS-600-5 (100A @ 5V), run at or under 80% |
Want it interactive? The scale calculator runs this math live for WS2812B and 12V WS2811 pixels at 35% or 50% load, and prints the feed plan in front + middle + end order.