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Thread: Addressable LED strips

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by blowfly View Post
    Cool effects! Nice work guys. A friend and I experimented with some LED strips based on the HL1606 LED driver chip. We couldn't figure out get effects quite like that though, it seemed like the driver chip wasn't fast enough to shift out more than a few dozen LEDs at a decent frame rate.
    The HL1606 is really limited in what it can do- each HL1606 can address several LEDs, but you can't really control what they do; basically running patterns are it.

    These strips have a different control chip, and are also limited, but in different ways- you have complete control of each pixel, but each chip can only control a single pixel so the manufacturers save on chips by putting several RGB packages in a single pixel.

    As for where we get them- we ordered them directly from a Chinese company.

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Junktronix View Post
    Very nice. Is it possible to connect 2 or more of these for lengths longer than 5m? Will you be able to tell us your source for the strips soon?
    No it is not possible to connect two or more of these strips in series- they draw about three and a half amps with all pixels on max white, which means the current rating of the flexiprint is somewhat pushed. I wouldn't recommend it.

    The driver card I've designed can run eight in parallel...

    I'll tell you the source just as soon as Matt surfaces so I can ask him where he ordered them.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by heroic View Post
    No it is not possible to connect two or more of these strips in series- they draw about three and a half amps with all pixels on max white, which means the current rating of the flexiprint is somewhat pushed. I wouldn't recommend it.

    The driver card I've designed can run eight in parallel...

    I'll tell you the source just as soon as Matt surfaces so I can ask him where he ordered them.
    Shouldn't be too hard to run 2 or more wired separately, but installed end-to-end and programmed to work together. I was at a trade show in Hong Kong recently and saw dozens of companies selling LED strips, but very few seemed to be addressable like this. Looking forward to getting a few to play with.

  4. #14
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    Great find. I'm trying to see what cool things you guys come up with for ideas. It would be a lot of fun to have a little more control over them though.

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mattatya View Post
    Great find. I'm trying to see what cool things you guys come up with for ideas. It would be a lot of fun to have a little more control over them though.
    More than 24-bit control of each pixel?

    How?

  6. #16
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    I didn't realize they were full control. Now how do I incorporate them into a mobile DJ rig?

  7. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mattatya View Post
    I didn't realize they were full control. Now how do I incorporate them into a mobile DJ rig?
    That is up to you to work out.

    I would note that they are quite fragile- certainly not as durable as a ropelight. Maybe you could thread them through some plastic hose or something to make them stronger.

  8. #18
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    Now how do I incorporate them into a mobile DJ rig?
    That was more a question to self

    Ideas are always great on this site. I do like the idea of tubing them as they can be fragile moving them around a lot.

  9. #19
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    Hey heroic,

    These look very cool. I've been looking for something like these for a while.

    Given that these strips are 5 metres in length and have 50 pixels per strip, I'm assuming the dot pitch would be 100 mm. Do you agree?

    I was thinking about how these could be used in a video screen array, e.g cutting the strips into 5, to have a 5 x 10 pixel array. These arrays could then be attached to a frame to allow stacking of 5x10 modules allowing you to bulid up stacks of varying shapes and sizes.

    If your driver could run up to 8 of these modules, will each be separately addressable, giving 400 separately addressable pixels?

    Do you think this would be possible given what you know of them?

    I know that Arkaos GrandVJ has an LED matrix controller. I'd be keen to figure out how to connect this to your driver, if possible.

    Great find! Looking forward to hearing about your source for these.

    Cheers,
    Tony

  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by taggalucci View Post
    Hey heroic,

    These look very cool. I've been looking for something like these for a while.

    Given that these strips are 5 metres in length and have 50 pixels per strip, I'm assuming the dot pitch would be 100 mm. Do you agree?
    No. Each pixel consists of three RGB packages. They are about 30mm apart.

    I was thinking about how these could be used in a video screen array, e.g cutting the strips into 5, to have a 5 x 10 pixel array. These arrays could then be attached to a frame to allow stacking of 5x10 modules allowing you to bulid up stacks of varying shapes and sizes.

    If your driver could run up to 8 of these modules, will each be separately addressable, giving 400 separately addressable pixels?
    Yes.

    Do you think this would be possible given what you know of them?

    I know that Arkaos GrandVJ has an LED matrix controller. I'd be keen to figure out how to connect this to your driver, if possible.
    Writing software for the controller is up to you. What I have right now is basically a code example of how to bang the strips with digits; I will be developing this into something I can control over USB, but I'm not quite there yet for multiple strips. I have an example that gives USB serial control of one strip (at full USB line speed, no less).

    Great find! Looking forward to hearing about your source for these.

    Cheers,
    Tony
    The source is these guys: http://www.gl-leds.com/

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