In case you weren't aware, a long LED strip with a high density of LEDs/m starts chewing up a lot of amps in a hurry depending on the effect. So much so that a lot of people will inject power into either end of the strip or even at multiple points along a length of interconnected strips. Otherwise the current draw causes a voltage drop that dims the LEDs and / or affects their color at the far end.
Lots of WLED people (myself included) run with pretty beefy dedicated 5V supplies and use decently heavy gauge wire to connect to the strips.
I'd recommend going the other way around. Connect to the ESP wirelessly and use a beefy dedicated supply to power both it and the LEDs.
To give an idea of what's possible, I built a "4K" display with addressable LEDs. It was 64 strips of 64 pixels each. There was no need to do any power injection (uniform intensity across the whole board). I did the same as you: beefy dedicated 5V supplies. Even then, I was a bit worried because lighting up the entire display at full power pulled over a kilowatt. The person I gave the LEDs to then reconnecting them into 1 long strip and had to do power injection,.
Thank you, I was aware of this for longer strips. My first project I want to do is my kitchen cabinets, using shorter length led strips. I have 8 cat6 cables running to my kitchen cabinets now for this project, which should be plenty of power for the short runs of LED strips I will be using.
A larger under the roof eaves display would be pretty cool though- will have to carefully look at the power for that if I ever do it.
can you recommend some specific power supplies? I’ve got a project that’s been stalled out for long time because I don’t know the right way to power it
For sure. You don't want to get some dicey supply that might burn your house down. I got a Mean Well LRS-200-5 Switching Power Supply from Mouser (200W at 5V = 40A !!!). Mean Well makes quality supplies at reasonable prices and are a popular brand with the WLED crowd. Be sure to buy the 25cent piece of plastic that snaps over top of the AC terminals so you don't electrocute yourself. And get some inline fuses while you are at it to be on the safe side (unless you are getting something like a QuinLED board that builds that in). You'll also want some terminal to barrel connectors to.
Lots of WLED people (myself included) run with pretty beefy dedicated 5V supplies and use decently heavy gauge wire to connect to the strips.
I'd recommend going the other way around. Connect to the ESP wirelessly and use a beefy dedicated supply to power both it and the LEDs.