Grumpy_Mike:
With a built in resistor you can only have the current up to the maximum that the resistor will let you.
You could use a higher voltage than 12V but I don't see where that would get you. Constant current regulators are only normally used on high power LEDs not on strips like this.
I understand I'd still be limited to the max current at 12v with the current limiting resistor ( lets say 40ma ) but the constant current driver could still be used to limit it to less current with no ill effects on the chip? To put it another way, I would be able to do RGB mixing using the drivers current limiting up to the maximum current allowed by the resistor at the 12v anode drive is that correct?
I suppose I could just wire it up and see what happens but why fry a perfectly good chip via my own dumb moves.
The goal of this adventure is to use these cheap 3 led RGB modules ( I'm sure you've seen them on ebay ) to build a large 7 segment display ( one module per segment ) that can be programmed for any color you wish, I suppose you could even make each segment a different color if you had an application where that made sense.