doveman Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Just saw this and thought it might be of interest http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6437/hands-on-look-at-adafruit-s-neopixel-rgb-led-strip/index.html It rather depends on whether the strip can be cut and wired up so that we can position the LEDs in the needed positions though, or if the strip has to be kept intact. Could still be nice for cockpit mood lighting though ;) Main rig: i5-4670k @4.4Ghz, Asus Z97-A, Scythe Kotetsu HSF, 32GB Kingston Savage 2400Mhz DDR3, 1070ti, Win 10 x64, Samsung Evo 256GB SSD (OS & Data), OCZ 480GB SSD (Games), WD 2TB and WD 3TB HDDs, 1920x1200 Dell U2412M, 1920x1080 Dell P2314T touchscreen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sungsam Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Usually led strips can be cutted every specific number of Leds since the circuit is repetative. It is specified in product characteristics DCS F16C 52+ w JHMCS ! DCS AH64D Longbow ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doveman Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 Usually led strips can be cutted every specific number of Leds since the circuit is repetative. It is specified in product characteristics Yeah, I know the normal strips can as I've bought those before but as this uses a controller and the LEDs are individually addressable, I'm not sure that will be possible with this. Main rig: i5-4670k @4.4Ghz, Asus Z97-A, Scythe Kotetsu HSF, 32GB Kingston Savage 2400Mhz DDR3, 1070ti, Win 10 x64, Samsung Evo 256GB SSD (OS & Data), OCZ 480GB SSD (Games), WD 2TB and WD 3TB HDDs, 1920x1200 Dell U2412M, 1920x1080 Dell P2314T touchscreen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romeokilo Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Seems you can cut this strip into single LEDs. They even sell single 'breadboard friendly' ones in packs of four. I just ordered a strip to try out for panel lighting. Thanks for the heads up doveman! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doveman Posted June 20, 2014 Author Share Posted June 20, 2014 Seems you can cut this strip into single LEDs. They even sell single 'breadboard friendly' ones in packs of four. I just ordered a strip to try out for panel lighting. Thanks for the heads up doveman! Excellent. Look forward to seeing the results of your experimentation :) Main rig: i5-4670k @4.4Ghz, Asus Z97-A, Scythe Kotetsu HSF, 32GB Kingston Savage 2400Mhz DDR3, 1070ti, Win 10 x64, Samsung Evo 256GB SSD (OS & Data), OCZ 480GB SSD (Games), WD 2TB and WD 3TB HDDs, 1920x1200 Dell U2412M, 1920x1080 Dell P2314T touchscreen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hempstead Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 This has been there for quite some time on AdaFruit, since last year. It has quite some weird protocol. AdaFruit has an Arduino hand tweaked assembly to get it to work. They can be cut down to individual units, each consists of one NeoPixel, plus one current limiting resistor, a complete unit. You can NOT drive it with a straight DC or PWM. You must drive it with a serial protocol. The protocol is basically an 800 baud asynchronous serial protocol, no start, no parity, no stop bit, 8 bit data. No Hardware UART can do no stop bit (either it's 1, 1.5 or 2 stop bits, or longer, but never 0), b/c basically asynchronous serial protocol requires start and stop bit to mark each char. Synchronous serial protocol requires no stop bit, but needs a clock line. But NeoPixel does not have a clock line, so it's sort of a hybrid of an async and sync protocol. And it's sort of a modified NRZ. 1.25ms per bit, 0.4 mark is 1, 0.8 mark is 0. I have been thinking about how to make hardware USART built in to Atmel SAM MCU to drive it instead of using AdaFruit's time sensitive not-exactly-portable software assembly code to drive it (I write my own firmware to drive my panels and joystick/rudder, soon to be OpenSourced). But I have not gotten it to work yet. And for me, driving NeoPixel obviously has lower priority than other features like reading MLX90363 hall sensor, or reading TM's Warthog/Cougar stick. Please do let me know, if you have any luck with it. I'd be very interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thick8 Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 I picked up a 300 light strip with 3m sticky tape from Amazon for $11 and a dimmer for $5. I used white sided 1/8" MDF board for my side consoles. I just cut the strip into two pieces and mounted them in the bottom of the consoles. Tests so for have shown even brightness on all of my panels. Good thing I bought the dimmer as it is too bright at full power. the strip has provision to be cut every third led with labeled solder pads and built in resister. John Asus ROG C6H | AMD Ryzen 3600 @ 4.2Ghz | Gigabyte Aorus Waterforce WB 1080ti | 32Gb Crucial DDR4/3600 | 2Tb Intel NVMe drive | Samsung Odyssey+ VR | Thrustmaster Warthog | Saitek pedals | Custom geothermal cooling loop with a homemade 40' copper heat exchanger 35' in the ground Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hempstead Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 I picked up a 300 light strip with 3m sticky tape from Amazon for $11 and a dimmer for $5. I used white sided 1/8" MDF board for my side consoles. I just cut the strip into two pieces and mounted them in the bottom of the consoles. Tests so for have shown even brightness on all of my panels. Good thing I bought the dimmer as it is too bright at full power. the strip has provision to be cut every third led with labeled solder pads and built in resister. John There are two kinds. One is analog, one is digital. The analog one is not called NeoPixel, and cannot be individually addressed, i.e. you control the whole strip with the same color and power, but cannot say pixel one with R50%/G50%/B50%, pixel #2 R10%/G20%/B30%, ... etc. However, the analog ones should work fine for panel backlighting. AdaFruit even sells a ready-made controller for analog strips with which you can adjust the color and intensity. AdaFruit also has a controller called PhaseCandy for controlling strips of NeoPixels. But as far as I understand, you need some software/computer to "program" it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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