Tired of a spotty wireless network impeding your home Internet use? Walls, ceilings and distance all conspire to degrade the strength of wireless signals, which can make it difficult to stream movies or even just browse the Web in certain parts of your home. Fortunately, there's a piece of technology that can bypass the downsides of wireless and bring high-speed Internet to every room in your home. You can buy adapters that piggyback on your existing electrical wiring to transfer data – and they’re easy for homeowners to install without the assistance of an electrician. Read on to learn more about how to use your electrical system to harness the power of the Internet.

The Internet in Your Walls

With Netflix, Spotify, email and Facebook, the Internet has become an integral part of our home activities. Wireless networks are a decent solution for broadcasting your signal through the home, but when they don't get the job done, you need a more hard-wired way to go. In the past, that might mean paying an electrician to run ethernet cords through the walls. Today, you have access to products like powerline adapters, which use your existing wiring as a data connector.

The adapters are simple to use. All you have to do is connect the device to your modem or router and plug it into a wall socket. Then, anywhere you want to use the Internet, just plug another adapter into the wall and connect it to the device in question. In lieu of plugging in every computer or Internet device in the house, you can also use powerline adapters to set up mini wi-fi networks in various rooms so you can still take advantage of the flexibility of wi-fi without the disadvantages of weak signals from far away routers.

Some Flies in the High-Speed Ointment

Of course, powerline adapters aren't perfect, and for a variety of factors, they don't always reach the blazing-fast speeds that they advertise. Various models claim to clock in at 200, 500 and 1,200 Mbps, but they never really came close to those speeds during testing by PC Advisor. For one thing, your electrical system can slow down the signal with old wires, power fluctuations, noise in the wires and interference from the circuit breaker. Charging up devices like cell phones and tablets can also interfere with the signal.

What's more, the data speed can be limited by the capabilities of the ethernet cord you use or the device itself, not to mention the speed of the internet coming into your modem. Nevertheless, the adapters are still almost always a better bet than wireless when it comes to speed.

If you have any questions about the suitability of your home for powerline adapters, call your local electrician today.

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Strips with more LEDs per foot will consume more power.

In short, if maximum energy efficiency is what’s most important to you, choose a light strip with smaller LEDs and fewer LEDs.

In order to ensure your LED power supply doesn’t overheat and fail prematurely, we use this general rule of thumb:

Make sure the total wattage of your LED strip lighting is at least 20 percent less than the power supply’s rated wattage.

For example, if you have an LED strip light that requires 80 watts of power to run, you’ll need a power supply that’s rated for at least 96 watts.

The vast majority of our strips include wattage per foot right on their product pages.

power supplies range from six watts to 1,500 watts for compatibility with a wide variety of LED strip lights.

Let’s take a look at an example:

It’s important to verify that the voltage of the power supply you choose is compatible with the voltage of your LED strip lighting. Also, be sure that the power supply’s input voltage matches that of the location it will be installed in. If you have an LED strip with 12-volt DC operation that you wish to use in a 120-volt AC home wiring system, you’ll need a power supply that includes 120 volts in its input range and has 12-volt DC output.

Another factor to take into account for longer runs is voltage drop. A significant voltage drop is present after a certain distance of LED strip. After this distance, there will not be enough voltage present to light the next length of strip. This varies depending on the type of strip and length being used. Usually, a single-density strip (nine or less LEDs per foot) will need to run back to a power source every 32 13/16 feet (10 meters). A high-density strip (18 or more LEDs per foot) will need to run back to a power source every 16 3/8 feet (5 meters). Please refer to “Max Run” in the specifications table of the strip light to determine how many can be run continuously without a parallel run back to power.

3) the 4) if you want your strip to be dimmable

power supply calculator on the product pages of all of our LED strip lights!

There are a few steps involved:

Step 1: Select your strip and the length you need.

Step 3: Click the green “Power Supply Calculator” tab, and select your product by choosing it from the list OR by pasting the exact part number in the search bar.

Step 4: Enter the number of strips at the desired length you’ve selected and voila! You’ll see a list of all compatible power supplies with the best match at the top of the list!

When dealing with electronics, safety is paramount, and you want everything to work like it’s supposed to. So if you’re still not sure which power supply to use for your LED strip lighting project, just reach out to our technical support team or customer service department at 866-590-3533. Our teams are available from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. CDT Monday-Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. CDT on Friday.

Question: – Gene Monteilh

Answer: There should be a replacement switch for this fan. It is called a “single pole, double throw” switch. If you need a Los Angeles electrician to install it, I’ll be happy to help you out. If you don’t live near Los Angeles, just call a local electrical contractor and tell him/her what you need and I’m sure they’ll be able to help you out. Good luck!

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