I have been lurking on the forum for quite some time and have read through many of the posts and have found the information invaluable. I have a question about whether the approach to wire LED lights at the top of this link is a good one from the standpoint of not ruining the Arduino nor the LED strips.
Ultimately, I would like to use this approach to have multiple shift registers feeding into RGB amplifiers that are each powered by an ATX PC computer supplies 12v rail.
I have previously built boards with MOSFETs but this seems like a much easier approach. Is there anything inherently wrong with this approach? It seems easier while being slightly costlier.
You are proposing using pre-built modular buffers for the PWM signals. This sounds quite plausible; each buffer appears to be designed for a total of 12A as I read it. I note that the input voltage is specified as 2 to 5V though they suggest it is possible and intended to chain them from successive 12V strips, and that the positive is commoned; so whether you can use a different V+ for the input and output (which would suggest they are opto-isolated) is not stated.
I have gotten these to work with a 5v input voltage on the side of the amplifier supplying the RGB signals.
My concern at this point is that it seems 'too easy'.
Thanks so much for your assistance. Is the best bet just to measure the volts flowing back to the Arduino (if any)? I would hope it's a one way street and it just passes on volts and signal, but you bring up a great point.