On Mon, 05 Dec 2016 07:17:01 +0000, Chris J Dixon wrote:

I just want something does a bit more than flash/fade simple
sequences. I suspect it won't pass management approval what ever I
do. I'd like it to do the simple "ordinary" things but also do
something to make people notice and think "Hey! That's different".

Personally I don't want any fast switching, I far prefer slow
transitions and colour morphing, of which there seems to be
limited availability.

Agreed simple switching is boring, rapid simple switching
distracting/annoying. All the commercial sets of lights we have have
fade/slow transition mode(s) and yes finding such sets is not straigt
forward. A decent "twinkle" is something I'd like. My 3 channel play
set up isn't bad at that but could do with one or two more channels.
Each channel switches on to full brightness for between 20 and 40 ms,
then fades to zero over 150 to 300 ms followed by an off time of 500
to 1500 ms. Each of those settings is randomly selected every 15
seconds per channel and each channel sequentially changed every five
seconds.

Still want to play with a Raspberry Pi's and indivdually controlled
RGB LEDs. you can set the brightness and colour of each LED at fairly
high rate. But that is just strip of LEDS, bit boring. The 18 m 240
LED set is folded back on itself twice to triple the LEDs/inch and
give the whole a bit more bulk.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Mon, 5 Dec 2016 08:02:40 +0000, Tim Watts wrote:

Hmm. I looked at the separate driver chip for the addressable, the
WS2811. It does seem to show 1 LED = 5V supply and 3 in series = 12V, so
that would explain some of the addressable tapes that have 1 pixel=3LEDs
as the addressable element (being 12V tapes).

Nearly, each pixel has at least 3 LEDs, red, green and blue. In the 5
V system that is all there is per pixel. In the 12 V system there are
three LEDs in series per colour so 9 LEDs total. B-)

However the control box must have some suitable switching and be
microprocessor controlled so just hacking into that is probably
easier.

Prised it open, some chip that I can't find any reference for
controling W2E SOT23 MOSFETs for the switching.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 05/12/16 15:26, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 5 Dec 2016 08:02:40 +0000, Tim Watts wrote:

Hmm. I looked at the separate driver chip for the addressable, the
WS2811. It does seem to show 1 LED = 5V supply and 3 in series = 12V, so
that would explain some of the addressable tapes that have 1 pixel=3LEDs
as the addressable element (being 12V tapes).

Nearly, each pixel has at least 3 LEDs, red, green and blue.

Well - OK, I was counting an RGB unit as a single package, which it
usually is in the tapes at least

In the 5
V system that is all there is per pixel. In the 12 V system there are
three LEDs in series per colour so 9 LEDs total. B-)

However the control box must have some suitable switching and be
microprocessor controlled so just hacking into that is probably
easier.

Prised it open, some chip that I can't find any reference for
controling W2E SOT23 MOSFETs for the switching.