# RGB LED strips



## EricB (Nov 8, 2015)

Far cry from the early days, like 10 years ago, when I was waiting for addressable RGB strings, and the only ones out were the expensive iColorFlex and Dotz models. Strips at the time were starting to appear on import sites like Alibaba, but were nowhere to be seen in use; and I even spoke to someone here about possibly making me one. (Then, in 2010, the Engineering Solutons RGB nodes finally came out, which has a very fragile, open controller to be connected to the computer through a dongle, and can be hard to remember how to run).

Forward to now, when RGB strips are all but replacing neons in store windows (as the perimeter lighting). You have the ones that are closely pitched, ones that are are pitched about an inch apart, and then the triple LED module strings. At first, this latter one was single color or non-addressable RGB (only one color at a time), but now I'm seeing more addressable ones (the three LED's on a module have to be the same color, but the modules are individually addressed and can be different colors. I see now, these are called, respectively, "analog" and "digital").
These things put on amazing "shows", and this, again, around the edges of store windows.

So heading to NYC's "lighting district" (a distant part of Chinatown), I see all of these things, generally sold in cuttable 16 feet lengths, usually for under $100, and the controllers I'm seeing (which have no brand name on them, but I found it here: http://www.parts-express.com/lavolt...-rf-mini-remote-for-tm1809-led-strip--073-502 —Lavolta LPC1) is also well under $100, and the only thing left would be a power supply for some (but not all) of the strips I've seen.

What I've had problems with, in researching or asking for them, is how they are referred to. So in doing a Google search ("addressable RGB LED strip"), I kept getting these model numbers:

WS2811, WS2812B, TM1809, UCS1903, TM1812, LPD6803 

Are these the model numbers of the actual strips or of the components (just to make sure)? Like here's a bunch of them: http://www.lightingnext.com/led-light-strips/digital-addressable-rgb-led-strips.html there's also something called "Arduino", which seems to be associated with them.

I'm wondering what the difference between these different models are, and trying to ensure that the model is digital (addressable). (From other pages on that site, I can see the SMD 5050, which I had seen mention of often, is the analog one). 

Are these model numbers specific to an OEM (which is hard to tell, since none of these things have mfr names or info on them), or are they some sort of standard?

I'm seeing also on that site http://www.lightingnext.com/ws2801-digital-led-pixel-module-with-3-smd5050-leds.html and elsewhere, another model, WS2801 comes in both the three LED pixel module (and each module is an SMD5050), and the 10mm LED string resembling the Engineering Solutions nodes. You would think those would be two different models of light, so I'm trying to make sure what's what here.


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## PhotonWrangler (Nov 8, 2015)

Adafruit sells a ton of these products and they also have some online tutorials on them. Their version of the WS28xx RGB addressable strips are called NeoPixels, and they also have a dotstar brand. The Neopixel version can be controlled by a very inexpensive (under $10) arduino board.


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## kevin110 (Nov 10, 2015)

Very bright and vibrant color, however the battery for the remote controler is hard to find and they're tend to run out of juice ratter quickly, the battery in my remote die after nearly 2 month
Also the back of the light strip have an adhesive backing but it not v ery goo, so i have to buy double size mounting tape to mount the LED strip.


I install the LED strip inside my computer case, what i do is i made a cable with 4 pin molex at one end and 12v dc at the other end, you could probably find a 12v bare wire cable somewhere on supernight or on amazon.


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## WeLight (Nov 10, 2015)

The WS is a series of direct addressable led driver chips, many ribbon manuf now embed the WS chips into the 5050 led itself so you can address the RGB colors
as seen here


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## alpg88 (Nov 10, 2015)

i visited the store on canal street once, but strips they sold were none waterproof type in silicone sleeve, no encapsulated strips. the guy kept telling me they are no longer produced, and b.s. like that, so i ordered them online. plenty of them there, the store's strips in the sleeve, imo, the worst type of strip you can get, thermal managment wise. 

there are 5050 rgb strips, where each led has 3 color dies, or there are 2835 rgb strips, that use individual color leds. i use mostly 5050rgb tape, i tried 2835, but 5050 gives you a lot better color uniformity.


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## EricB (Nov 14, 2015)

PhotonWrangler said:


> Adafruit sells a ton of these products and they also have some online tutorials on them. Their version of the WS28xx RGB addressable strips are called NeoPixels, and they also have a dotstar brand. The Neopixel version can be controlled by a very inexpensive (under $10) arduino board.


OK, thanks. (And I now see Arduino is a controller. But I for now prefer something like the Lavolta, because the Arduino it says has to be connected to the computer. And it looks like just a naked board. I already have that setup with the Engineering Solutions lights. The Lavolta seems to be standalone. And I see it has over 130 programs, plus "custom combination mode". I guess an Arduino with a computer would be able to do more?)



WeLight said:


> The WS is a series of direct addressable led driver chips, many ribbon manuf now embed the WS chips into the 5050 led itself so you can address the RGB colors


OK, so "WS" is the chip. I guess that explains why "WS2811" I'm seeing both strips and strings (nearly identical to Engineering Solutions). Still wonder what's the difference between the different "xx" models (2801, 2811, 2812, 2812b, etc).




alpg88 said:


> i visited the store on canal street once, but strips they sold were none waterproof type in silicone sleeve, no encapsulated strips. the guy kept telling me they are no longer produced, and b.s. like that, so i ordered them online. plenty of them there, the store's strips in the sleeve, imo, the worst type of strip you can get, thermal managment wise.
> 
> there are 5050 rgb strips, where each led has 3 color dies, or there are 2835 rgb strips, that use individual color leds. i use mostly 5050rgb tape, i tried 2835, but 5050 gives you a lot better color uniformity.


If you're talking about Canal Lighting, they're the same company as Bulb World on Chrystie st. (that's actually the "lighting district" proper, and there are a bunch of other stores a block over on Bowery), and IIRC, I think they did have waterproof ones, or at least one of the other stores in the area. How long ago did you go?
(Yeah, and SRGB, which is the name for separate LED's, was always out of the question for me).

These things seem to have really exploded recenty, and the other cool things I was looking at on Bowery were the LED filament bulbs, and you could even see how they're made: a very thin board of micro LED's in the phosphorized substrate, and they come in both soft and cool white. 

Also, these brilliant LED flood lights using rows of super bright dies. I then look up at a city traffic light (which are all saturated color LEDs by now), and the green looks white, and the red looks cerise, like it has a bit of blue, and the "don't walk" hand sign which is straight orange now looks like pure red!)


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## PhotonWrangler (Nov 14, 2015)

EricB said:


> OK, thanks. (And I now see Arduino is a controller. But I for now prefer something like the Lavolta, because the Arduino it says has to be connected to the computer.



The Arduino needs to be connected to a computer to load the program into it, but it operates as a standalone controller once it's been programmed. It can also be fitted with a bluetooth or wifi interface for remote control. 

I'm not familiar with the Lavolta but I'm going to read up on it.


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## EricB (Nov 14, 2015)

OK, that doesn't sound bad. Still, it is a DIY kit that does not come with its own cover? (All the pictures I see of them are naked boards).


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## PhotonWrangler (Nov 14, 2015)

The enclosures are sold separately and there are many styles available. Also some of the arduinos are small enough to hide in small places. there are a couple of arduino clones that are only slightly larger than a postage stamp.


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## DIWdiver (Nov 15, 2015)

In case anyone missed it, an Arduino is a general purpose microprocessor platform. Many add-on boards are available to provide additional capability, like Bluetooth, WiFi, motor controllers, etc. But you would need to learn the programming language and write your own programs, unless you could find the program you want already written. Because LED strip lights are so popular, it's pretty likely you could find some programs available to run them, but you might have to modify the program to get it to do exactly what you want.


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## EricB (Nov 21, 2015)

OK; for now; what I'm considering getting is just more "RGB nodes/pixels" style strings, like these:




Basically the same thing as the Engineering Solutions nodes (BTW, I wrote him and he told me they were 2801's), but they are SO CHEAP now (The ones I got 5 years ago were $105 just for the string, and now Amazon has them for under $20!)

I went back to the lighting district, but none of those stores have them. 
I wanted to see if they would hook up to a controller like the Lavolta. (For now, I want to go with that, rather than an Arduino, which if I'm understanding right, is not a "plug and play" sort of device; I don't want to have to put stuff together right now, adnd I've actually seen Lavoltas in person). It's hard to tell whatcan go with what on these sites. 
Is there a standard connection, or adapters at least?


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## PhotonWrangler (Nov 21, 2015)

The Lavolta looks like a great starting point. You can always upgrade to a fancier controller later if you want to add features to it. I have a similar RGB strip sitting around, and the little white controller box that came with it looks identical to the one that comes with the Lavolta starter kit. It's probably the same unit.


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## EricB (Nov 22, 2015)

But do you think they'll work with these *strings* in the photo?


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## PhotonWrangler (Nov 22, 2015)

I can't quite t ell from the pictures. The controller at the bottom right is a little white box with a similar looking cord but I can't be sure without the specs. Can you point me to that website?


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## EricB (Nov 22, 2015)

Got that from here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013FU2PZ4/?tag=cpf0b6-20

Wasn't even sure if that was a controller, or just a power adapter or something. IDoesn't seem to mention which controller).

Here's one with a controller, but in Japanese (just found it)
http://kutop.com/5v-ucs5903-ic-programmable-rgb-led-pixel-string.html
Doesn't seem to have any buttons to set things with, though.


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## PhotonWrangler (Nov 22, 2015)

Ok, it looks like they're in the S2811/2812 family which is really common for addressable LEDs. The Lavolta controller is probably compatible from a logic standpoint but it looks like the "Epistar" pixels use a different 4-wire connector than the basic Lavolta controller has. The larger Lavolta-PRO LPC1 controller does have the 4-wire screw terminal interface so that would probably work.

I have a couple of small WS2811/2812 LED boards sitting around. I might try hooking one of them up to my (basic) Lavolta-style controller and see if it works.


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## EricB (Nov 23, 2015)

OK. I didn't notice the name "Epistar" anywhere. I see they are a large LED manufacturer (but I think it's LED's themselves; not strings). Are they like the sole manufacturer of the "jumbo" (10mm) LED's these strings use? 
And what really is the difference between 2811-2 and 2801? And then, the other numbers I mentioned also: TM1809, UCS1903, TM1812, LPD6803.

The response Box 2801 set I have uses a four pin screw connector, and I wasn't sure whether that was proprietary or not. All of the ones I've been seeing seem to look like the non screw ones in the photo (and couldn't tell how many pins they were). So I wonder if these lights or controller are compatible with anyone else's products.


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## PhotonWrangler (Nov 23, 2015)

I 'scoped and measured the 4 pins coming out of my controller and here's what I see - 

Pin 1 Common <--This is the pin with the dash mark stamped into the plastic. I'm assuming it's pin #1.
Pin 2 Green 
Pin 3 Red
Pin 4 Blue

When a color is lit, the controller applies -12vdc to that pin.

The controller contains an unmarked 16-pin microcontroller chip and a Fremont Micro Devices FT24C02A 2k 8-bit serial EEPROM.

This is probably the same format for the 4-wire screw connections, although the red and blue pins might be swapped. I noticed a discrepancy between the wire colors and the silk screened color designations on the printed circuit board, so something got swapped along the way.

The drive transistors are really tiny, maybe SOT-23 packages and not heatsinked so they're not intended to drive a huge chain of LEDs. The larger controllers might have more drive current.

At any rate, this format uses separate pins for red, green and blue drive current, and a common ground pin. This is slightly different from the WS-2811/2812 devices. The WS-2811 is an RGB driver chip that can control an RGB LED from a single data signal. The WS-2812 is a single package with the 2811 controller and RGB LEDs integrated as a self contained unit. Since the signals coming from the LaVolta controller are discrete Red, Green and Blue drives, this will only interface with LED strings that use this 4-wire system as opposed to the 3-wire (power and 24-bit serial data) system that the WS-2812s use.


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## EricB (Nov 24, 2015)

I can't tell which pin in which on mine (with the screw connector; they're not marked, and the wires are encased in the round cord).

I just found this video https://youtu.be/uJ_fZMG_2r4 and I see they're called "*dumb* RGB nodes" (I take it, becaue they don't have a controller built in?) I'll have to watch that when I get a chance. IT seems to be using adapters to connect to the controller.


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## PhotonWrangler (Nov 24, 2015)

If your string is a WS-2801, that is a smart pixel based protocol where every LED in the string can be addressed individually. The basic Lavolta controller is for "dumb" LEDs and won't support the 2801s.


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## EricB (Nov 24, 2015)

PhotonWrangler said:


> If your string is a WS-2801, that is a smart pixel based protocol where every LED in the string can be addressed individually. The basic Lavolta controller is for "dumb" LEDs and won't support the 2801s.


 Oh, so "dumb" means "analog" (that was the term I had sen for that, as opposed to "digital", which is "individually addressable. I guess that is also called "smart").

I'm not trying to run the one I already have (since I have the controller for that); I'm trying to get more lights, and at these cheaper prices (instead of getting three more of the one I have, which I assume are probabaly still $105.

So, they have both the Lavolta controller, and smart/digital nodes on Amazon, and it's just a matter of making sure the string uses those 4 pins (and not 3 pins or the screw connector). This one here




looks like it has the inline pin connector. 
So since it says 2811; that means we know it's the 4 pin one, but the issue is still making sure it's will fit the Lavolta then. You said certain pixel strings use a different 4 wire connector (the screw type?), and you said the Lavolta-PRO LPC1 also uses the screw connector, though when I look it up, I see the inline connector




So again; it's just a matter of whether that will fit any device designated a 2811.

Also, are there adapters for these things (like in the video) if they don't fit?
Also, are these strings connectable? I know the one I have isn't, and the only way to have more is to add up to three more on the controller ports (and then that would be the most you could have for one controller). I'm looking to run three or four together, and again, trying to grab these cheaper ones.


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## PhotonWrangler (Nov 25, 2015)

The outputs on the controller in the picture show power, clock and data lines. This suggests that it's intended for the smart strips that have a data receiver chip at each LED, as opposed to having separate wires for R, G, B and common.

The limit on how many strings can be daisy chained depends on the maximum current of the power supply as well as the maximum current that each string can handle. For instance a three string chain means that string #1 has to be able to carry it's own current as well as the current from strings #2 and #3. At some point youo run into the physical limitations of the current carrying capacity of the copper traces on the pcb.

As far as adapters, it depends on whether you're just converting the same signals to different pinouts or trying to adapt different types of signaling. In general you want to start with strings that all share the same signaling format. You can always buy connectors froom sources like Digi-Key and Mouser and making your own adapter cables, as long as you're 100% positive of the signaling format, current capacity and pinouts.


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## EricB (Nov 27, 2015)

OK; now I see that the Lavolta is really for that one TM1809 strip (seing that model number on a controller in a store window display, I thought it was the model of the controller, not the lights. And the TM1809 is "smart", BTW).

This ShenZhen KAPATA controller http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RRT4PR6/?tag=cpf0b6-20, which is nearly identitcal to the Lavolta, is made for 2811 and several others. But I'm not seeing the connectors for it. (Though those lights I posted above I just saw are by Kapata too).
Might this be the one you have?


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## PhotonWrangler (Nov 27, 2015)

I have this Zitrades 3528 300 LED set. It has individual red, green and blue LEDs and uses the 4-wire "dumb" controller.


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## EricB (Nov 27, 2015)

I just now realize that this set is a whole kit including a controller: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016ELRPSI/?tag=cpf0b6-20 I thought that little white box was a power supply transformer.

Wow; the whole thing for just $24? (and 100 lights at that!)



I wonder how much it can actually do; like as much as those others.


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## EricB (Nov 27, 2015)

I just asked the seller on Amazon, and they said this string and controller are compatible
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OH05D3I/?tag=cpf0b6-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RRT4PR6/?tag=cpf0b6-20

So that's what I'll go with (if I can squeeze it into the budget now. And it has quicker shipment options, unlike the full kit I just mentioned above, which might not arrive in time, and is also not programmable, though it would still be nice to have).

Thank you for your help.


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