I am working on plans for my new house and there are a couple rooms with tray ceilings. I plan on installing crown molding with LED RGB rope lighting behind it for accents. I would like to be able to change the colors through the HA system. I haven't yet ironed out exactly yet. Has anyone done this yet? Can you control it using relays? If anyone has done this, what brand rope lighitng did you use? Thanks in advance!
Controlling LED RGB Rope Lighting
- Thread starter joe39562
- Start date
What capabilities you're looking for? Do you want to control individual pixels or whole string? The latter might be achievable with relays. Former requires some form of digital control. There are few options on amazon. Ikea has some LED strips. Look up Ray Wu store on alibaba. His products are pretty popular with decorations pros but might not be too consumer friendly. Finally, if you can squeeze regular bulb sockets somewhere, check out Phillips hue - expensive but easy to use, lots of software, fairly open interface, zigbee based.
BraveSirRobbin
Moderator
Phillips Hue is the thing to get, but it comes in 'regular' bulb size. I'll be doing a CES report on them shortly as I saw their latest product offering. 
elvisimprsntr
Active Member
I installed white Hampton Bay LED rope lights for under/over cabinet lighting in my kitchen. I control them with Insteon Outlet Lincs, which have just enough leakage voltage to just barely keep the LEDs on when the switch is off. This was not noticeable with incandescent lights. SmartHome confirmed this is a known effect. While the nightlight effect is OK, I wonder how many other devices have a leakage effect which adds to my utility bill.
elvisimprsntr
Active Member
I think I read the lights use zigbee or zwave. Can you control the lights using your existing compatible HA controller and ditch the Phillips unit?BraveSirRobbin said:Phillips Hue is the thing to get, but it comes in 'regular' bulb size. I'll be doing a CES report on them shortly as I saw their latest product offering.
tmbrown97
Senior Member
I'm on my phone and don't have the links, but if it were me, I'd go with the 16' RGB LED reels. They're very thin/small and adhesive backed. They're also extremely bright I'd you get the dense ones. I have them on top of my kitchen cabinets and they light up my entire downstairs (about 2,000 sq ft).
The controller aspect is a little trickier - I use a DMX compatible RF controller but it was cheap and has already broken a little bit. Relay control is ok for straight on/off of each color, but many colors require custom mixing/dimming of each and for that you need something rated for the higher amperage. If you want more details on how to do that, let me know and ill post more when I'm on a pC in a few days.
The controller aspect is a little trickier - I use a DMX compatible RF controller but it was cheap and has already broken a little bit. Relay control is ok for straight on/off of each color, but many colors require custom mixing/dimming of each and for that you need something rated for the higher amperage. If you want more details on how to do that, let me know and ill post more when I'm on a pC in a few days.
I'm looking for some thing that can control all the colors. From what Ive seen on message boards it doesnt look like there is a device that can communicate with either the Elk M1 or Homeseer and DMX. The closest Ive found so far was a setup through wifi to communicate to an iphone or ipad, but it created its own dedicated wifi network and there doesnt appear to be be able to integrate to another system. I'm still scouring the internet to see if something does exist but no luck so far. The end result I'm looking for is to be able to control it via touch screen along with all other control and be able to have it respond to events such as the security alarm flashing red (I have a lot of rooms that will have these tray ceilings).
mdesmarais
Active Member
http://www.quasarelectronics.co.uk/8191-3-channel-high-current-rgb-led-controller-serial-rs232-ttl.htm
Just located the US distributor too-
http://www.electronics123.com/s.nl/it.A/id.2984/.f
Just located the US distributor too-
http://www.electronics123.com/s.nl/it.A/id.2984/.f
Very cool, if the protocol isn't too complicated, one could easily use this with the ELK/HAI hardware. Now we just need to put together a kit Would love to replace the rope lighting in the kitchen with this, and use colors to indicate certain status changes, etc.
Would love to replace the rope lighting in the kitchen with this, and use colors to indicate certain status changes, etc.potts.mike
Active Member
Protocal seems pretty straight forward to me.
http://electronics123.net/amazon/datasheet/K191.pdf
http://electronics123.net/amazon/datasheet/K191.pdf
If each color has it's own power feed why not just use 3 dimming modules (zwave, UPB, whatever..) Set the three levels to get whatever color and brightness you want.
Here's a rather old RGB LED controller. I haven't looked carefully - it looks like it is for low voltage but it probably could be extended and in any case may give you some ideas.
http://rgbled.org/
Here's a rather old RGB LED controller. I haven't looked carefully - it looks like it is for low voltage but it probably could be extended and in any case may give you some ideas.
http://rgbled.org/
I like mdesmarais solution, but I'm not a programmer. It would be nice if someone could make a plugin/add on for something like homeseer. The other obstacle is wiring. Most of the LEDs are 12 or 24 volt. And you have the communications through comport. Would you locate these controllers at each light location and run Cat 5 to them for communication or locate the controllers at your central location and run a larger size cable to the LEDs. Sounds like the first option but either way you would have to provide the 12 or 24 volt power locally or run a larger cable to run from a central location.
I have done the same thing in my living room using a cai webcontrol board and generic wireless outlet. Hacked the wireless outlet remote so I could use relays to turn them on/off. Now I can turn the rope lights on/off with my phone and setup a timer for them too.
I used some LED lights that were on speical after christmas from Walmart. I hide an extention cord under the edge molding that went up the wall. Could have made it look better, but I plan on remodeling the living room this year, so I just wanted to see if I could do it.
If the lights are the kind with the push button, you could use a relay on that too. I just use the default setting, so it was not important to me.
I used some LED lights that were on speical after christmas from Walmart. I hide an extention cord under the edge molding that went up the wall. Could have made it look better, but I plan on remodeling the living room this year, so I just wanted to see if I could do it.
If the lights are the kind with the push button, you could use a relay on that too. I just use the default setting, so it was not important to me.
