12v rgb led control

[dkersten]

Has anyone played with controlling SMB-5050 12v RGB LED strips with command lines or other software that can be controlled by a front end?

I have done some lighting with it that was controlled via Wi-Fi and my phone, but now I am looking to do something through the PC so my FE can control it.

At the least I would like a controller that can just do a preprogrammed sequence when powered up.
Going beyond that, having the front end be able to choose between different modes based on various situations (startup, selection, game launch, etc)
And ideally it would be cool to have full control and maybe even tie into mamehooker and have games trigger different events, but that is really getting out there.

I found one controller that looks like it can be triggered off command line events:  http://www.amazon.com/MJS-Gadgets-USB-LED-1-RGB-Controller/dp/B005TX3QHM#cm_cr_dpwidget  But it is kind of expensive and I hate to spend that money and have it not work for me.

Any ideas?

[Nephasth]

LEDBlinky + LED-Wiz = What you want.

[dkersten]

It can do 12 volt high current leds?  Thought it was only 5v like the rest of them.  I will look into it, thanks.

[Nephasth]

The Invaders have 12V RGB LED strips behind them. All running off an LED-Wiz using LEDBlinky.

[dkersten]

Sweet, looks like it will support up to 4 different voltages for outputs.  And now that I am looking into it, looks like the pac-drive can do the same.  Gotta get my order amended before it ships!  Then I will just have to calculate how many segments can be run off one channel. 

Thanks! 

[dkersten]

Doh, pac-drive is on-off only.  So LED-Wiz it is.  Looks like the 5050 strips draw about 160ma per foot at max intensity, so I should be safe to do 3 foot segments on one channel (500ma max per channel).  I will be doing colors, so it is more likely I will be hitting only a fraction of the max draw, but just in case I hit "all on" I will be well within the limits.. 

[dkersten]

Just an update, on the 5050 RGB light strips, one segment is 3 LED's and approximately 2 inches (1 meter is 20 segments, 60 LED's).  I metered the following at 12.4 volts, no resistors or PWM controller:
blue: 16.9ma
red:  17.4ma
green: 19.2ma
all on: ~55ma (had to use the 10a setting on my meter, so not quite as accurate

So this means that 20 segments (60 LED's, 1 meter length) draws a max of between 338ma and 384ma per channel, within the 500ma limit of a single channel on an LED-Wiz, and right about at the max 1 amp per bank (short pulse).  Since I have no intention of running all 3 channels at max intensity at any time, technically I am safe.  However, just to be safe I will likely run less than a meter per bank, and since I have 4 banks, I might even split up one color to a different bank, just in case.  I will almost certainly end up dialing this down to less than 50% intensity as well, so I am sure that even with white I would be well within the 500ma per bank recommendation.  Just for safety sake I might dig up a heat sink and rig it up with some thermal tape. 

I am not even sure exactly where I will be running the ambient lighting.  Possibly just in the front of the cab, but I might light the back at a low intensity so it makes the wall behind it glow as well.  The back would take a few meters, so I might have to get selective on this, like only light the top half. 

the cool thing is LEDBlinky can run the LED-Wiz on a completely separate animation from the Ipac UIO led's.  So I can have an animation running on the FE, show button colors when pausing on a game, and switch to button colors when launching a game, and still have an animation running for the ambient lighting that doesn't stop (like that Invaders video where the game sounds activate the ambient lighting).  I might also have to just tie it into the music part and add a jukebox list to Mala so the ambient lighting dances to the music (and the buttons on separate animations).  This could be a lot of fun to play with..

For convenience, the ambient lighting (including the marquee and coin door) will all be able to be switched off manually so if the dancing lights are bothering anyone else in the room, they can be switched off without modifying any of the animations or changing any software. 

Although I will be detailing the install in the project thread, I can post specific information about the lighting here in case anyone needs it for future reference.