I've looked into it and I'm going for a 12V 5M 300 RGB SMD 5050 led strip, with a 12V 2A power adapter.
Which IC would fit best in here? I was thinking of the WS2803D because it's cheaper than the WS2801.
Or would you recommend somethint like the 74HC595?
I want a lot of possible color combinations.
Because of the nature of the LED strip you specified you should not need a LED driver IC unless your going to cut the 5M strip into several (more than 2) shorter strips and control each strip independently. You could just use 3x suitable NPN transistors per strip connected to separate PWM pins on the arduino (the UNO has 6 PMW pins so you can connect 2x strips and control them independently)
EDIT:
Just looked at your Ladyada link and it shows them using STP16NF06/TIP120 at bottom of page.
Riva:
you should not need a LED driver IC unless your going to cut the 5M strip into several (more than 2) shorter strips and control each strip independently. You could just use 3x suitable NPN transistors per strip connected to separate PWM pins on the arduino
I'm going to cut up almost the whole strip to use them seperatly.
Something like:
Arduino Leonardo -> IC -> 3 or 6 Led strips
Do I still need 3 NPN transistors per strip? Or can these be placed before the IC?
Danton:
I'm going to cut up almost the whole strip to use them seperatly.
Something like:
Arduino Leonardo -> IC -> 3 or 6 Led strips
Do I still need 3 NPN transistors per strip? Or can these be placed before the IC?
If your using something like the WS2803D it's datasheet says it can handle 12V directly so no need for the NPN's
Which IC would fit best in here? I was thinking of the WS2803D because it's cheaper than the WS2801.
Or would you recommend somethint like the 74HC595?
WS2803D looks O'K, WS2801 is 5V you can't use it with 12V strip.
How you need to control your 6 pieces of lighting, individually or they all changing color as a whole?
O'K, than. Leonardo, AFAIK has 7 PWM pins, but you 'd need 3 x 3 = 9 /* for 3 strips /, and 3 x 6 = 18 / for 6 strips */.
It's mean you need more PWM pins than board has. There are an options:
WS2803 = 18 channels (1 IC needed)
TLC5940 = 16 channels (2 IC = 32 channels)
74HC595+ULN2803 (pair) = 8 ( 3 pairs of IC = 24 channels ).
You will need a separate 12V supply that can also be used to power the arduino if needed for stand alone (no PC) operation.
Using the WS2803 chip (or chips) you don't use PWM to talk to them but a form of serial using 2 digital pins. These 2 pins will talk to all the WS2803 chips (not 2 pins per chip) as there control pins are daisy chained together CKI > CKO & SDI > SDO
I can't seem to find anything about about the high voltage option of the WS2803.
The WS2803 needs a 3.3 to 5.5 volt supply to power its logic but the datasheet (attached) says the output pins (connected to the LED strip) can handle -0.3 to 40 volts so 12V should be fine.
I knocked up a rough schematic of what you need. It is by no means complete (I'm meant to be working at the moment). You will need to ground the 12V supply with the arduino ground, calculate the IREF resistor value and add a couple of caps to smooth things out. You could also power the arduino from the 12V supply either by adding a 5V voltage regulator connected to Vin on the arduino OR fit a suitable plug to connect to the arduino power socket.
I knocked up a rough schematic of what you need. It is by no means complete (I'm meant to be working at the moment). You will need to ground the 12V supply with the arduino ground, calculate the IREF resistor value and add a couple of caps to smooth things out. You could also power the arduino from the 12V supply either by adding a 5V voltage regulator connected to Vin on the arduino OR fit a suitable plug to connect to the arduino power socket.
Thanks, I'm glad there are people that can help me with this.
Again a few questions:
Does the 5V output always need to be connected with the digital pin?
The resistor on IREF determines the output in mA on the output? And does the GND also need to be connected to the Arduino?
Where will the capacitators go and what is there exact function (type)?
This is one of my first projects and I am familiar with most parts but not really about there function and position.
I'm reading a lot of info on the internet, and I just found some tutorials I'm going to read when I have the time.
The VCC pin on the WS2803 needs connecting to the +5V pin on the UNO and the GND pin needs connecting to the GND pin on the UNO and to the 12V ground. The CKI and SDI pins need connecting to a couple of the UNO's digital pins as these program the WS2803 chip(s).
The IREF needs connecting to the shared ground (preferably not ground through the UNO as I'm not sure of IREF output level)
A couple of capacitors to just reduce potential electrical noise and smooth out loads. I would try one 16V 10uF electrolytic and one 16V 100nF ceramic per WS2803 connected between VCC & ground close to the WS2803
I will hopefully get to refine the drawing tomorrow.