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[on:]

I bought some knight Rider LED strips but was hoping to modify the board to be used as brake lights/turn signals by either reprogramming the ASIC/replacing the chip/cutting the pins and soldering in an arduino to the pins cut on the board.

The light strips are 48 5050 RGB and setup as cathode common across all 48 on 3 channels the Red cathodes, then green, then blue.  The grounds are sectioned into 8 channels of 6 LED each.  This setup runs on 12v and is remote controlled.  I want to try and use the board with an arduino controlling it somehow  to just respond to 5 inputs.  Brake lights, running lights, sequential turns left and right, and backup lights.

Can an arduino be used if the ASIC chip is disabled or another chip programmed with arduino.  I just didn't want to try and make a board when this one already does everything already for 12v and cathode common...just needs reprogramming to my 5 inputs.
 
Here is a few pics of the board and chip

[Reply #1 on:]

I dont see an easy way to do what i think you want. Probably the easiest way would be to separate the lights from the controller, and build your own controller to work with the lights. This will probably require using a bunch of extra parts, depending on how you want to control the LEDs.

Realistcally, I would say enjoy the lights as they are, and build your brake/turn signal thing separately. There have been a few recent projects doing that exact same thing, so it should be pretty easy to duplicate the results.

Heres an article with video about a recent arduino project that does what you want.
http://lifehacker.com/5984197/this-diy-brake-light-backpack-warns-cars-and-other-bikers-when-youre-slowing-down-or-turning

[Reply #2 on:]

I bought some knight Rider LED strips but was hoping to modify the board to be used as brake lights/turn signals by either reprogramming the ASIC/replacing the chip/cutting the pins and soldering in an arduino to the pins cut on the board.

It doesn't seem possible to me. All the important stuff will be inside the ASIC and that's the bit you're going to cut out. All the rest is just a PCB with some RGB LEDs attached to it. You'll need to add transistors, etc., and trying to fix them to the PCB will be more trouble than it's worth. It will be less work to start over with a new piece of perf-board.

I say have fun with the scanners and build a whole new gadget from scratch.

[Reply #3 on:]

Yes I need to cut out that 20 pin chip to put my own chip/arduino that i can program in its place....perhaps you are correct ..it will be too much trouble...I need to buy some anode common ones I guess.

[Reply #4 on:]

If you are using red or single color LEDs, then they are not common anode/cathode. If you want to use RGB LEDs, they come in common anode or common cathode or in some cases both cathodes and anodes are available.

The way that they do it in that website I posted is kind of an easy way if you have a warehouse full of adafruit products, but it can be done with a lot less.
There are a lot of options out there, its really up to you how you want to do it. If you keep the number of LEDs low enough, you can do this project without lots of additional parts, but if you want to use a lot of LED, and or get fancy, then it can get a lot more complicated very quickly.