What Driver do I need?

Question: 

I would like to run 10m of Warm White LED Strip in my living room but I'm not sure which Driver I need to select. I would like this RGB+WW 14.4 w/m strip which I can control with a 4-Zone Remote Control. I already know that I need an RGBW Led Controller to go with this. 

Answer:

Determining the amount of watts you would need to power your LED Strip would come down to a simple calculation.

All you do in this instance is to take your 14.4 w/m and multiply it by the total length you wish to install. In this case 14.4 x 10 = 144.  Now, in order to compensate for voltage drop, we times once more by 1.2 (20% additional power consumption), giving a total of 172.8 Watts. This means that you would need to round up to a 200W Driver, like the model shown here. Don't worry too much about it having a higher wattage, it will only draw the power it needs for the strip.

Please note: if you prefer to control your Dimming via a Mains Wall Switch, you will need a Mains Dimmable Driver, but please be aware that this will work only for Single Colour LED Strips, NOT RGBW. The calculation here is the same, except that you will NOT need to perform the x 1.2 final part of the calculation, in which case a 150W Driver in this situation is fine. This is because the strip to mains requirements are far stricter. 

In summary - multiply your w/m x total length of strip required. 

x by an additional 1.2 to account for voltage drop (in case of using non-dimmable Driver only!)