Landscape Light controller design feedback

iggyspark

New Member
Hi folks - new here so hope I am conforming to protocol with an ask for feedback:
I built a very basic controller for my 12V landscape lights. It uses a prebuilt 10A 12V power supply with 2 leads each of + and ground. These leads feed the input of 2 MOSFITs and the output of each MOSFIT is 8 x 12V 10W lights in parallel. The pre-built MOSFITS are controlled each by a pin on an ESP8266 in PWM mode so that the integrated application (ESPhome for HomeAssistant) can control on / off and brightness with the YAML code used in that application. I used a step-down converter attached to one of the 12v leads and ground to feed the ESP8266 it's 5v. It works remarkably well but I wonder if there are any things I should consider like fuses at the + leads? Parts are basically from Aliexpress - MOSFITs, ESP8266, PS and step-down converter.
 
Eight 10W lights is 80 W. That is 6.67 A. If you are running both sets at the same time, you are either overloading the power supply or the lights aren't taking their rated current.

If the power supply is a switch-mode one, it will have a current limit in it so fuses wouldn't protect anything. The danger with a short when you have a power supply like that is that the output voltage will reduce, and it could be the that a MOSFET doesn't turn on completely, and gets really hot. However, if they are pre-built MOSFET circuits then they may have protection against that.
 
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