Ikea Dioder Arduino Control with 16X PWM Led Fader Board

[greenoakst]

oh, my eyes!....

[strongbad2795]

is there a benefit to using the dioder vs a normal LED strip like Sparkfun sells?

[CuriousInventor]

@strongbad2795 Their LED strip might be a better fit for a lot of arduino-to-LED-strip applications. The 16X fader can drive a lot of current, and has a lot of functions like grouping, fading and sequencing built in.

[strongbad2795]

@CuriousInventor Oh, I understand, I didn't realize that this video is prob more about the 16X controller board and that you sell it on your website. I have wanted a controller like this for a while. Two quick questions. What current is the Dioder running at? are all the LEDs in series, therefore requiring a large amount of voltage? I have wondered how to control the individual channels of an RGB strip without using a very large power supply.

[sentrinsic]

@strongbad2795 Each LED is actually a tri-color LED, with red, blue and green built in, but those channels are independent. In each group (you can cut the strip at the group boundaries), there are 4 resistors and 3 of these multi-leds. Not sure exactly what the circuit is, but each group is definitely in parallel. You always apply 12V to strips like these, and since it's in parallel, the longer the strip, the more current and power is used. More details coming in another comment...

[sentrinsic]

@strongbad2795 In the strip I show in the video, which is just the standard length and about 33in, the red channels draws .14A, blue .11A, and green .13A, all at 12V. Like I said before, almost all of these types of strips are meant to be driven at 12V, where additional length is just adding groups of LEDs in parallel. There are 12 groups of LEDs on my strip, so if you cut it down to just one group (/ 12), it would consume about 30mA with all three colors full on.

[Shawn21769]

That was really nifty. That gave me a great idea for Halloween.