RGB strip lights?

[Brian74]

I would like to get some rgb led strip light to put under my cab. What ones will work with a led-wiz?

[CoryBee]

I just ordered 3 strips of the RGB and 1 white strip. 5m each. I do not have an LED Wiz but I too would like to know if anyone hooked these things up to one. Thanks.

[Brian74]

Where did you get yours from?

[CoryBee]

Where did you get yours from?

Ebay my good man. Got the white ones from a US seller, should be here tomorrow, for $15 shipped. Got three RGB ones from a Overseas seller for $12 each ( estimated to be here by the 25th ).

I thought about it and you should be able to run these on an LED controller. Might have to cut a piece of the strip off for the individual ports on the LED-wiz.

If your not sure what I am talking about I can create a diagram. Surprised someone else isn't chiming in, maybe no one has tried it before.

[Mysterioii]

There are two main types of RGB LED strips... addressable (each LED can be a different color...  the strips incorporate little driver chips like the WS2801 family or similar) and non-adressable (every LED in the same strip is the same color at any point in time).

The addressable strips... nope.  Use an arduino or your favorite microcontroller.  You have to clock in serial data for each pixel's color levels and the chips incorporate shift registers that push the data on down the line.  LEDWiz can't handle that.

Non-addressable strips...  sure, in theory.  These things have a lot of LEDs and depending on the length of your final run will require quite a bit of current so you may need to add mosfets on each color channel and use them as switches with the LEDwiz just acting as a controller to turn the mosfets on or off.  Otherwise I'm pretty sure you'll fry your ledwiz.

I have not tried this on an ledwiz yet but I have several LED strips both addressable and non-addressable lying around and have run them off an arduino...  making plans, not enough free time to realize them yet...   

[CoryBee]

Thanks for that info Mysterioii.  The white ones are Non-Addressable (not like they need anything else) and the RGB ones I got are addressable. I saw a demonstration of this model on youtube.

[Mysterioii]

If you google around there is lots of info on driving those strips with microcontrollers like Arduino.  Catch is, there are different driver chips that use different communication protocols and they are not remotely interchangeable.  So you'll need to determine which chip is used in your addressable strips and find the appropriate code examples.

Can you send me a link to where you found 5m RGB addressable strips on ebay for $12?  The 5m non-addressable ones typically go for $20-ish and the 5m addressable ones are often in the $80 range.  Beware of bait-and-switch...  I get a lot of components from China and usually have no problems but have had some mixed luck with the strips.  The first time I tried out Alibaba, I ordered a 5m addressable strip for like $75.  I was sent a 5m non-addressable one... and it had a few dead "pixels" to boot.  >:S    The seller insisted it was the same item as pictured (not remotely) and initially only offered an exchange if I paid the shipping to send it back...  since I was already clearly getting scammed I was pretty sure he'd have my money AND his product back and I'd get nothing.  Turns out Alibaba's customer support and dispute/fraud resolution is HORRIBLE compared to what we're used to.  I took pictures of what I was shipped and linked to pictures on his listing, and they could see his snarky exchanges as I tried to straighten things out, and after MONTHS of back and forth all I got was a partial refund of like $20.  Lesson learned, I will stick with ebay over Alibaba.... you may still get scammed but at least you'll get your money back.

[CoryBee]

Yea I messed with alibaba in the past as well, luckily only good things came of my experiences.

This was one of the images that was on the "auction"



So my assumption is it is addressable since there is different colors going a the same time. Picture could be lying, so we will see.

The white LED strip was a buy it now, the RGBs were regular auctions I caught at the end and sniped for them. Can always find some around $9 with 6min - 15min, wait for around 2 0seconds left on the clock and place a bid for like $13.51. 60% of the time, it works every time.

[Nephasth]

I used these RGB LED strips (non-addressable) with an LED-Wiz for cabinet lighting: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=221054249288

Here they are in action...

[Mysterioii]

Ah I think what you have there is not addressable.  Yeah I saw that style around quite a bit and almost got some of them, but what I think they are is RGB strips with separate LEDs for red, green and blue.

The non-addressable RGB strips I have use a single RGB led as a "pixel".  I believe these strips have a red led followed by a green one followed by a blue one....  If you tell the strip to be "full blue" then I believe only every third LED will be lit up at all, whereas if it uses actual RGB leds then of course they'd all light up blue.  This is fine, depending  on the application.  For underlighting it would be ok.  The overall brightness and lighting density would not be as strong as if it used RGB leds.

I may be wrong of course, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.  In the ones I looked at they would sometimes have a picture showing several colors, and if you looked real close you could see what I was talking about. In the pic you posted for example, it goes green on, red on, blue off, green on, red on, blue off....

Strips using separate LEDs for each color are cheaper than ones using integrated LEDs which are in turn cheaper than full-addressable LED strips.

I wouldn't say you got screwed or anything, especially for that price, but they may not be what you expect.

Yea I messed with alibaba in the past as well, luckily only good things came of my experiences.

This was one of the images that was on the "auction"



So my assumption is it is addressable since there is different colors going a the same time. Picture could be lying, so we will see.

The white LED strip was a buy it now, the RGBs were regular auctions I caught at the end and sniped for them. Can always find some around $9 with 6min - 15min, wait for around 2 0seconds left on the clock and place a bid for like $13.51. 60% of the time, it works every time.

[Mysterioii]

BTW that's beautiful work Nephasth, in fact so much so that I may totally rip it off...     Not intentionally of course, I'm just trying to think of something to do with my cab.  I've just got a mameroom.com Ultimate Arcade II kit with no artwork on it yet.  It's very plain, and of course comes with that black finish.  Rather than slap on some printed artwork I've been trying to think up something else I can do, and the cutout images floating off the surface with backlighting like yours has been in my mind for a while now.  I hate to rip off the space invaders theme but the monochrome nature of it is appealing to me and simplifies things a bit for me since I'm not very artistic.  I'm toying around with maybe asteroids or even Galaga or Galaxian or something.  Dunno.  But I like the idea of doing something a little sculptural rather than printed artwork, and of course LEDs are great...      Heck as a kid I really loved Mappy but for some reason I don't think a big standoff Mappy cutout with LEDs behind him would really be the look I was looking for...   

[mrclean]

IKEA:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50192365/

[CoryBee]

You could be right on that, let me get this straight though. You are saying that there are 3 separate LEDs for RBG very..very close together, or that the each light I see is one LED of R, B, or G.

I noticed I have been leading a bid for what I think is the kind you claim.   http://www.ebay.com/itm/320945817755?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1426.l2649

But the images in the auctions I already won make me think that I bought the addressable.

Don't think you can get blending like this with the non addressable. Could be wrong.





And here is a picture of what I am currently bidding on that I believe is not addressable (wish I had this convo sooner)

[Mysterioii]

Well, RGB LEDs are technically three separate LEDs squeezed really close together in a single package with either a common anode or a common cathode, but what I'm talking about is that I think the cheap ones use separate LEDs not particularly close together at all...  Like a red LED, two inches later a green one, two inches later a blue one.  Some of the auctions will include (small) pictures of the primary colors and you can see that they're spread out like that.

I think usually the addressable ones will come out and say "addressable" in the auction, and close pics (if they include any) should reveal the controller ICs built into the strip, like in this auction:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1m-RGB-LED-Light-Strip-5V-WS2801-Bonus-32-LEDs-Waterproof-Addressable-Color-/160810882132?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2571135454#ht_3184wt_1165

The top couple of pics in your last post MAY be addressable or maybe not... the top pic looks like pink/purple but it may really just be "red on, blue on, green off"...  the halos in the black background around each led look more like pure red and blue.  The wire in the last picture makes me think it's not addressable, too.  Notice it's a red, green and blue wire....  Addressable strips don't have separate color lines, they would be hooked up more like "power, data, clock, ground".....  Of course they COULD have been using any color of wire to make the hookups but generally when I see separate red, green and blue wires I presume that each line is being used to drive it's respective color.

The ikea module looks like it could be fine for under-cabinet lighting....  the addressable strips (and the driver chips themselves as well as the "christmas tree light" strands that are available) offer a lot more flexibility should you want to get creative with things.  

Basically I think sellers know what they have there and they know that truly addressable strips are more desirable (and legitimately more expensive because of the dedicated IC every couple of inches) so they tend to go out of their way to point out that they're addressable.  If they don't spell it out, I start looking really closely at the pics (and the price).  I don't think they go out of their way to point out that their strips are NOT addressable or that they use separate LEDs for each color...

[CoryBee]

Very valid points! Will be taking some nice Macro shots when I receive them in the coming days. Glad i had this conversation. I am just about 100% sure the auction that I am still in is non-addressable, the verdict is still out on the 3 RGB I already purchased.  

{ EDIT: Upon further inspection of the 3 RGB strips I bought, I have came to the conclusion that you were right they are non-addressable. A quick zoom in on all of the pictures shows that only one or two of the LEDs are lit at once. CURSE YOU BUZZ-LIGHTYEAR!!!!!!   }

Nephasth - Epic work on that cab, I have been lurking about watching your progress. Also great to know that those Non-Addressable one work with a MAME compatible LED controller. If I win this new auction I might have to go that route with my arcade.

[Nephasth]

BTW that's beautiful work Nephasth, in fact so much so that I may totally rip it off...   

Nephasth - Epic work on that cab, I have been lurking about watching your progress. Also great to know that those Non-Addressable one work with a MAME compatible LED controller. If I win this new auction I might have to go that route with my arcade.

Thanks guys! Definitely add cabinet lighting of some sort to your cabs. Arzoo is adding more features to LEDBlinky for cabinet lighting, and it would be great to see more projects utilizing his hard work.

[CoryBee]

Thanks for letting us watch that beast of two heads get transformed. Happen to have any shots of the strips being connected to the LED controller? Also, how do you plan to utilize them? Blink or change colors for a certain game?

I am definitely using some of these LEDs for my arcade build, if only I had picked a theme yet ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---, not sure where to put them either.

 

[Nephasth]

Thanks for letting us watch that beast of two heads get transformed. Happen to have any shots of the strips being connected to the LED controller? Also, how do you plan to utilize them? Blink or change colors for a certain game?

I haven't put out any pics of the inside of my cab showing the wiring yet (almost have it all cleaned up). My wiring is somewhat "complicated" and can't all be viewed in one pic. But here's a shot of the LED-Wiz that controls all the cabinet lighting (keep in mind I'm using 2 PACLED64s to control the control lighting).



And here's a couple of the strips installed on the marquee and invaders.





Right now they're set up with an audio animation to go with the sounds of each game. But when arzoo gets finished with the new features I'll be able to make game specific animations and different color schemes for audio animations for different games. I'll have a default audio animation for games that I haven't yet made animations for.

[CoryBee]

First off, that is freaking awesome! 

Very very clean wiring job, looks like a ton of work.

You say it blinks and shifts color depending on what sounds are coming from the arcade games? How does that work? If you are playing pac-man does it blink to every Waka-Waka or change colors to blue when you get the power to eat the ghosts?  That would be awesome! Thanks again for sharing, I love seeing things like this, it makes me want to solder up a storm.

[Nephasth]

Thanks. Yep, tons of work. I probably have over 80 hours in the wiring of my cab. LEDBlinky can flash your LEDs whatever colors you want to the sounds of games/music. It's just a few check boxes in the software, super easy. Keep in mind, you need a separate LED controller for cabinet LEDs so they can run independent animations from your controls LEDs.

[Brian74]

Hey Nephasth that is some sweet work! I ordered the same leds you did. Should be here by the 6th of august. Right now I have 2 led-wiz and 2 pac-drives. I think I might have to get one more led-wiz or a pac64. I have 22 buttons and a trackball I need to light. Btw, where did you get those connectors from?

[Nephasth]

Thanks! The connectors I used are Molex Micro-Fit connectors. I have a variety of different sizes for my projects. If you want to go that route, you will need a good set of crimpers with the appropriate die set (if using ratcheting crimpers). Part numbers for the 4-pin dual row connectors and pins, as well as the part number for the dies to crimp the pins (and a few helpful pics) are in post #69 in my build thread.

Soldering those LED strips was a bit of a pain. If you're not comfortable with small soldering, I would recommend getting some of those connectors/harnesses that are on eBay for the LED strips. It would make wiring them up much faster too.

Plan ahead on how you are going to split up your LED strips for your cabinet lighting. Do the math for the number of total outputs you'll need, as well as the total current draw for your LEDs per output. Look up the specs for the LED strips and make sure you're not overloading the outputs of your LED-Wiz. Your cabinet lighting will have to be on its own separate LED controller to work properly with LEDBlinky.

Don't forget to post pics when your done! Good luck!

[CoryBee]

Still waiting on the RGB leds but I just go the white ones, hooked it up to a small power supply. So bloody bright!  I like pictures so enjoy!







Through the macro lens on







Kind of glad I got the non addressable LED strip cause I can add them to a pacled or something! Thanks Nephasth.

[Nephasth]

...cause I can add them to a pacled or something! Thanks Nephasth.

You don't want to do that. The PACLED64 can only handle 20mA per output, which would be just one LED from that strip (I know from lighting my joystick dustwashers, used the same type of LEDs). You'll want to use an LED-Wiz or PAC-Drive for the strips (and even then, do the math so you're not overloading the outputs with too long of a strip).

[CoryBee]

You don't want to do that. The PACLED64 can only handle 20mA per output, which would be just one LED from that strip (I know from lighting my joystick dustwashers, used the same type of LEDs). You'll want to use an LED-Wiz or PAC-Drive for the strips (and even then, do the math so you're not overloading the outputs with too long of a strip).

Thanks for that. Good to know that one isn't a good one to get for it. LED-Wiz it is, I can do the math no worries. Also, I am no where needing to add it on yet so I will do much more research.