Wiring assitance

[Mad Monkey]

Okay, maybe its being up late for new years, maybe its because ive been off work injured for a year and my brain isnt working.. either way, i need help lol

im very familiar with electrical wiring etc yet for some reason i cannot work this problem out and thought my felling RPF'ers could help!

i have 2 LED strips wired to 12v dc. they work great.
old setup was 1 switch powered both strips at once.
i changed it to a different switch type, so i can have one on, off and the other on (Spdt)

what i want to do is this.. ..

i want to be able to control both strips, i want the option to have 1 on or both on.
i know im into relay territory, but for some reason i just cant work it out..

Thanks for your assistance!

 

[Nicodema]

Hi MM. So are you trying to control the state of two strips using a single switch? If so, you'll need a simple state machine, e.g. a 2 bit counter chip controlling a pair of relays, via transistors. There would be other ways to do it, but that's probably the simplest.

A 2 bit counter would go:
A and B Off
A Off, B On
A On, B Off
A and B On
.. repeat

 

[doppelganger]

Probably easier to have a main switch powering both with another switch in the line of the led strip you want to turn off and on seperately.

 

[Mad Monkey]

Probably easier to have a main switch powering both with another switch in the line of the led strip you want to turn off and on seperately.

Now there's some outside of the box thinking!

Power Both with switch A, switch B kills strip 2 ..

 

[Mad Monkey]

I like it because it's simple... And something I don't have to purchase lol

 

[TazMan2000]

How about a Single Pole Triple Throw switch?

TazMan2000

 

[Nicodema]

Yep, if you don't have to use the switch you, err switched to, actually a DP3T switch would be ideal. With a SP3T you have the problem of how to wire up the two loads so that your "both" position doesn't short the two loads together, so that you can't have a working "single" position. DP3T lets you keep your two channels separated.

 

[TazMan2000]

Either that or you can use a regular switch wired in series for power and use your SPDT for the functions you want.

TazMan2000

 

[Mad Monkey]

I took the idea of 2 switches and ran with it.. But then I figured, if I'm doing 2, why not 3...


I ended up removing the illuminated part to the switches, they heated up more than I was comfortable . Probably cheap made.. But switch wise they are great.