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Cheap Lighting for Marquee
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madfrog2000:
If you want the strips to light up when the PC turns on connect the red wire from the strip to the Yellow wire on a molex plug (from PC Power supply) and black to black.
2" behind the marquee might be abit close you might find the light being brighter in some spots. I have mine roughly 8" behind but like "MaxAsh" said depends on your Marquee Material. 
LED strips shouldn't get hot unless you over volt them. Iv had mine running in my PC for 3 days non stop no heat coming off them.
You might be able to get some kinda conductive glue, to glue wires between 2 strips.
Blueic5:
i was planning to get the marquee printed online onto some matte translucent Duratrans style polyester film which is designed for lightbox's sandwiched between 2 x 2mm plexi.  Ive not quite got that far yet though :)
dkersten:
I placed two strips behind my marquee, one was about 2" back and the other about 4" back and the light was very even.  It was too bright overall though, so the PWM dimmer I linked above was ideal for dimming it down.  I mounted the dimmer inside the cab so I dialed it in to the brightness I wanted and left it.  I have an external switch to turn it on and off manually, that way I can leave the computer on and let it just go to sleep but not have the marquee on all the time.  Personally I like the marquee for display purposes, but when playing there is no need to turn it on.

You can also get full RGB strips for super cheap, and there are remote IR controllers that come with the kits for under $20 (5m of lights plus controller).  You can get them in regular or waterproof.  I also picked up a wifi based controller, stuck it in a weatherproof box with a 12v adapter inside, and lit up my firepit area in my back yard.  I control it with my phone.  Unfortunately, I couldn't locate a cheap RGB controller that was command line based.  It would be nice to find a controller that can handle a few amps at 12 volts on a single channel and be able to light up the strips with LEDblinky and control it through the front end.

madfrog2000:
Hey, Dkersten mind sending me a link to the wifi controller?  I bought 2 of those 5M RGB strips with IR controllers for the Arcade shed last week. Would love to control it with my phone :lol
dkersten:
Here is the one I used http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EUVDQL0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Supernight makes one too, which is I think made by the same manufacturer and is the newer version, but more expensive.  From my understanding they all use the same Magic Color V2 app for apple and android.  The app is OK, not great but works.  You can set a manual color from the full range of colors along with the intensity, or you can choose from a bunch of preset modes that fade or switch fast.. On the preset modes you can make your own and you can control the speed at which the colors change, but not much else.  There is a third option to set it to music, but you can only use music in your phone (not Pandora or any other stream source) and you have to run it through the app).  It works OK, bumps to the music, but not incredibly well.  For the money though, it works.  I used an $8 12v power supply that was something like 6 amps. 

Once you get the unit powered up, disconnect from the wifi in your house and scan for a new wifi, you will find the controller.  Then use the app to go into settings and have it connect to your home wifi.  Then reconnect to your home wifi and when you scan for controllers in the app you will find it from anywhere on your home network.  You can also connect through a PC and go in and change the IP address to match your home network, but I couldn't get it to log in with the default password on mine.

You can connect 2 strips with one controller, or use amplifiers to connect more.

(sorry for the threadjack)
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