I recently bought two 24v RGB strips for my bedroom. I've done some searching to try to find out how to wire this up correctly, however I have not had any success. The strips I am using have three pins, 24+ GND and DI. All the diagrams I was looking at for reference had 4 pins, which were RGB and +. They were also using MOSFETs, which I don't want to use unless necessary. I am aware that the Arduino boards can handle 5v and i've heard 12v MAX. I'm not sure if I am supposed to connect the ground of the strips and powersupply to the arduino AND the 24v to the arduino like you would do with a 12v or 5v strip; I would think not.
Also, if I connect both strips, will I need to worry about voltage drop? If so, how can I solve that issue?
The strips I am using:
Any help would be appreciated, especially if anyone has a diagram showing how to wire this properly.
Thank you!
OK, so these strips use WS2811 chips, you can consider them the same as "NeoPixel"s and use the Adafruit library or "FastLed".
You need a 24 V supply rated at 60 mA per three LED group, however many of those groups you have.
You connect the ground of your 24 V supply with the ground of the Arduino which it powered by a proper regulated 5 V supply to the "5V" pin, though you must disconnect that when you connect the USB to a PC to program it. Or you can generally power teh Mega by its USB port with a USB "phone charger" rated 1 A or better. You connect your chosen data pin (any digital pin will do) to the Data In of the first strip via a 470 Ohm resistor. You can use two data pins to separately control different strips with two instances of the "strip" code.
You must keep the power and ground connections from one part to another together as a pair, and similarly the data and ground connections from one part to another.
You do have to worry about voltage drops. Use cable for the power that is intended for power connections.
