Wiring a Reed Switch to Control LED Strip Lamp With Wall Power and Remote Transformer

Hello everyone!!

I need some help wiring a prototype for a lamp.  I want to use a strip of LEDs power from the wall and just having a reed switch to turn the lamp on and off.  My train of thought is;  to have a wire with power coming from the wall to an LED inside a cylinder and as the switch comes in contact to a magnet then it turns on the lamp.  I dont have room for a transformer the design has to be clean if at all the transformer can be right at the wall.  Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Hello Alvaro.  Most LED strips need 12V DC so you WILL need a transformer - but for this sort of thing you need one for safety reasons anyway.   However the good news is that you can get a small "Wall Wart" type 12V power supply that will supply 1A or more quite cheaply. (This one supplies 1.5A for $20 but you should be able to get something from almost any electronics shop.)  Then all you need to do is wire your reed switch in series with one leg from the power supply to the LED strip and you're done.  The only restriction is that small reed switches are not capable of switching large currents - This one can switch 0.5A only (that's probably 25 LEDs or more) but larger ones would switch more.  So check the specifications on your LED strip and see what it takes per LED and scale it accordingly.  You will probably need to do some cutting and soldering of wires so I assume you're conversant with that.  You will also need to connect your LED strip with the right polarity so you may need a multimeter to check that.  If you're at all unhappy to do any of the above, I would seek someone with a bit of expertise to help you, but you won't need a lot of knowledge to do it.  Have fun. // DavidPS I found a nice diagram here.  You'll just use the reed switch in place of their rocker switch.

David,
Thanks for the reply.  Do you have an email where I can send you a diagram of the lamp?Alvaro Carrisosa