Digital/addressable RGB LED source?

[Workinonit]

Well, I did it. $250 in LED lights are coming my way. I don't think I'll have any problems obtaining my night license this year. I decided to go with RGB because, let's face it, they're fricking awesome. I don't think I should have a problem with battery drain issues. I may add another 12v battery just to be safe (my dad's the shop manager for a local trucking company so I get my pick of massive, slightly used Volvo batteries from rigs/cranes)
Is there anything I need to keep in mind when installing the lights? tips? tricks?

Not sure how long you are intending to have a single strip on a single controller, but if it goes too long the signal can degrade and cause the lights at a certain distance to glitch (ie: not be the color you are intending). When this happens you will need to get a RGB Repeater which will require a power line and you just put it in between the strips between a strip which is working good and the bad one.

this one seems a bit pricey but you get the idea:
http://www.amazon.com/Data-Repeater-Amp ... B0040FPCXG

These LEDs are pretty bright. A lot of people diffuse them... but if bright and crisp is what you are want you are good.

Other than that, you should be good to go... Post pics and progress!

[Skankx]

Thanks man, I'll get the lights in a couple of weeks and keep you posted.

[junglesmacks]

I had no idea that you are the reason that ScottLED is making these strips, workinonit! Amazing. Huge props..

[ethan7557]

The latest LPD8806 digital RGB strips have built-in pulse-width modulation (PWM), which gives you access to more colors than are differentiatable by the human eye (7-bits for each Red/Green/Blue). You can pick some up at adafruit, $35.00 per meter, and I found the same LPD8806 strips for $119 per reel (5 meter) . The old-style HL1606 RGB strips are not as cool as the LPD8806, because they don’t have built-in PWM. You can do some manual (CPU-intensive) hacking to get it to work, but without that you are limited to 1 bit for each channel (so 8 colors total). The big win here is that you can get it cheaper (around $20 per meter, on ebay).

[vincent81]

I got 5M WS2801 RGB strips for 129 bucks from http://www.bestlightingbuy.com/ws2801-a ... strip.html . The RGB strips contain a number of individually addressable RGB LEDs - 32 pcs WS2801IC per meter. Each RGB pixel has its own tiny controller to control its color.After successful playing around with it, I plan to order a bigger quantity.

[junglesmacks]

What kind of setup are you using? If we knew then we could offer better help..

[trilobyte]

I'm giving this a nudge over to the Power & Illumination board.

[junglesmacks]

Was I spambot hacked? That reply looks pretty out of place.. lol

[moltensteelman]

http://www.superbrightleds.com is a good source for LED lighting, they are a little higher priced then ebay but have good quality and a large selection.