Back story:

For the past year I have a set of LEDs in my kitchen, and recently they started turning off, changing brightness, switching to different modes all by themselves. I thought maybe the controller went bad and was failing, so I replaced it a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday they started exhibiting similar behaviors again.

So I’m wondering now if the power supply is failing and it’s causing the controller to do weird things.

I grabbed my multimeter to see what kind of voltage the power supply is putting out, and it’s giving me 52V. The power supply is supposed to give 24V output (see screenshot below), so I’m confused and was hoping someone could help me understand why I’m getting over 2x the voltage?

I do apologize if this is not the right place. I saw an askelectronics community, but their rules say no electrical, and at this juncture I believe my question is electrical. If there is a better place for this kind of question, I would appreciate a pointer to the better place.

Edit:

I am a dummy. Less so as of right now, but yeah, it was user error. So I learned today that the multimeter can read both DC and AC voltages, and my power supply is 24V in DC, while I was reading it in AC. 🤦‍♂️ Once I switched to using DC, the power supply read 24V (in multiple outlets).

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    They’re $15…

    Buy one and see if it fixes it.

    However, I don’t want to take for granted that you’ve moved the plug to a different outlet and tested it there, along with testing the outlet it’s normally plugged into.

    It’s probably a bad supply, but it takes 2 minutes to follow thru with the rest of trouble shooting.

    I identify that supply reads bad in different outlets, and something that works fine, still works fin in the problematic one.

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      20 hours ago

      I edited my post, but I was reading the wrong voltage on my multimeter. Thank you for replying though.

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      Yes, I understand I can buy a new power supply, but I’m also trying to learn and understand the situation.

      I just tried several different outlets in the house, and they all read the same 52V at each outlet (different circuits). I also tried a different power supply (12V), and it reads 26V. So I’m still confused.

      They are both 2A supplies, and both numbers are 2.166 multiplier. Is that why I’m getting the 2x+ voltage reading?

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        I haven’t dealt with electrical engineering in a decade, but it sounds like you isolated the problem to the supply. Assuming you meant it was reading normally at outlets, but the supply read wrong at multiple outlets.

        Definitely do not try to do anything to fix it. It’s already broke and not worth the risk.

        So order the new one, don’t plug the old back in. And maybe someone who knows more can explain how the original broke.

        It’s good to want to understand this stuff, but it’s never worth rolling the dice on repairing something as cheap and constantly in use as this. Probably the biggest lesson with electrical shit is “don’t cut corners”.

        • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          I’m not looking to repair it. I just want to understand what I’m looking at so I don’t go spending $15 every time something weird happens.

          Assuming you meant it was reading normally at outlets, but the supply read wrong at multiple outlets.

          What was reading normally at outlets? The only things I teated were two separate power supplies, and both read at 2.1666x their output voltage as stated on the power supplies. Should I be testing the outlets themselves or something?

          I apologize if I sound obtuse, I don’t mean to be. 😊

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    22 hours ago

    I grabbed my multimeter to see what kind of voltage the power supply is putting out, and it’s giving me 52V.

    The output is rated at 24V, if you’re getting 52V then I’d say you do indeed have a bad PS. Further, if its dumping 52V out the output it may have damaged the replacement controller too. My guess is you’d need to replace both.

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      20 hours ago

      I edited my post, but I was reading the wrong voltage on my multimeter. Thank you for replying though.

  • vrek@programming.devEnglish
    1·
    24 hours ago

    What is the voltage going into the power supply? Should be 120v but the power supply works on percentage so if you have a short and putting 240v into it…

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      22 hours ago

      The input rating shows a range of 100-240v, so even if it was fed 240v, the output should be the rated 24v. This either has a regulator or a buck converter in it to drop the voltage.