24V Power Distribution
Managing voltage drop across a 50-foot daisy-chained grid.
Managing Grid Impedance
Each Smart Node draws approximately 1.2 Watts when actively illuminating its RGB LED. On a fully loaded 50-foot array with 500 nodes, the total power draw can reach 600 Watts at 24V DC (25 Amps).
Because the power is distributed through the copper planes inside the FR4 grid tiles, the resistance of the interconnects between tiles causes a voltage drop over long distances.
Design Rule: You must inject supplemental 24V power every 5 tiles (10 feet) to keep the voltage drop under 3%. Failure to do so will cause nodes at the far end of the board to brown-out and reset during heavy routing loads.
To understand the math behind this, use our AWG Voltage Drop Calculator, which uses the same physical principles.