silly question

[kernal]

When hooking up the ext cords, the white is pos and blk is neg correct?  And the grn is ground so can be just cut off.  Do i cover with tape for precaution?

[kernal]

I mean blk pos wht neg.  Sorry

[duane.mosley]

yes on 120v electric, the white is neutral(neg) and black is hot(pos). white is always neutral when running 120v and your colored wires are hot. black, blue, red, etc. yes the ground(green) can just be cut off and taped. if your using a 3 prong cord to feed your express, you should just break off the ground prong on the cord cap itself so that the wire inside the express never becomes an issue.

[kernal]

Ok.  Also, i see some people using both power inputs.   Is this necessary?  I have all LED that will be WELL below the amp requirements.

[Steve Gase]

Ok.  Also, i see some people using both power inputs.   Is this necessary?  I have all LED that will be WELL below the amp requirements.

Refer to the manual... there are two methods of using one incoming power line to feed both halves of the board.  there is a pair of jumpers soldered to the bottom of the board -- or you can take a pair of wires from one side to the other.

[typoagain]

Kernal, that is not a silly question at all. What would be silly is to not ask. At least it had better not be a silly question as I have asked it dozens of times over the last several years.
 

On another note: the power cords. Yes you can set up the LE to run on one cord or two. I run about 95% LED so I never have issues with overloading my LEs. But I built my LEs to run on 2 power cords.

Why? As I see it I would rather be safe than sorry. I normally end up just plugging both cords into one extension cord anyway. But I would rather overload a cord by accident than a LE board.


LE Board=$75?
extra cord=$4-$6

[jnealand]

All 14 of my LEs were built using a jumper wire from the left input to the right input area.  Like typoagain, I tried the first couple with two input cords, but was just plugging them both into the same extension cord so I got rid of one and put the jumper in.  I used mostly LEDs or single incan strings per output so no stress on power loads.

[tbone321]

Just remember that when using 2 power cords that they do different things.  One cord powers the logic on the Express as well as 8 of the outputs and if you lose that one, the whole Express goes dead.