LED Light Strips

[tmbrown97]

I'll contact my original supplier again just to see what pricing looks like now; for all I know, I may be able to get them cheap enough to still be quite competitive.

Gatchel - you mentioned several rolls - do you have a number in mind?

These things really are great - there are so many applications for them. I even found some that are IR - imagine hiding strips under your eaves to provide your IR illumination for cameras! Or under ledges for accent downlight, etc. There's also now a nice market for housings for them - though they end up costing more than the lights themselves, but can give you a diffuser and a very nice looking aluminum mount for corners, under cabinets, etc.

I don't mind bringing more in - and at the same time, it makes no difference if you want to just grab some quickly and easily from Amazon... whatever works best.

 

[gatchel]

I'll check out what Amazon has to offer. I am just concerned about the quality.

 

[ano]

I've been following along, but I haven't seen much discussion of control of these. I know they make the cheesy RF remote that can change their colors, but is that the only option? This year I am automating my Christmas lights, as any Cocoontecher should :rockon: and in that world, there is a popular RGB LED lighting strip called the Cosmic Ribbon made by Light-O-Rama. Its 50 RGB LEDs spaced 6" apart for a total of about 25 feet. Its not much different than what you are talking about here, but they charge $250 for it. Get 5 or 10 and prices can add up. The Cosmic Ribbon uses a proprietary Light-O-Rama protocol, but the software also supports DMX which runs over RS-485.

So if there is a way to control these, I'd be very interested, but i don't think the RF control part will work.

 

[dgage]

Gatchel,

I wish I could give you a longer term use report but I haven't installed them yet but I should have them installed within the next month for above counter and under cabinet lighting. I'll report as soon as I am able about my short term thoughts. I will say that I did quite a bit of research on Amazon and the HitLights seemed to get pretty good reviews although not many. I remember one review that specifically compared several of the available led rope light options.

David

 

[tmbrown97]

The cosmic ribbon is awesome, but very pricey. If we could get those for the china prices, I'd buy a TON of them! They have a data signal and are controllable by LED IIRC giving you a lot of flexibility.

The normal strips don't let you control LED's individually but instead by the whole strip. As you noticed, there are a bunch of options but none terribly automation friendly. I have RGB LED's above my kitchen cabinets for cove/accent lighting - for that I bought one of the RF setups that had a DMX compatible receiver with the thought of one day tossing in some DMX control but using the remote until then. I'll tell you that one has already slightly failed - I have some color choice, but blue is basically always on no matter what - I may have overloaded it with the 600-LED super density strip. I haven't gotten around to the DMX control.

Another one that I looked at - I found a high-power serial controller for these in the UK and had that shipped over - it was like $80; but like so many other things, it too sits in my "someday" pile.

There's another group of people that figured out how to hack the light strings that you'll find in the big box stores - by removing their controller and addressing each LED bulb individually - if I were trying to trick out a tree, that's the method I'd most likely go with. There's plenty of sample code to go along with it.

 

[gatchel]

I ended up ordering a few of the HitLights Branded ones. I'll post up once I get them.

 

[mdesmarais]

For strip controllers, I was looking at this-

http://www.quasarelectronics.co.uk/8191-3-channel-high-current-rgb-led-controller-serial-rs232-ttl.htm

Haven't got it yet, but kind of half-way between an expensive unit and the total DIY route.

 

[tmbrown97]

For strip controllers, I was looking at this-

http://www.quasarele...l-rs232-ttl.htm

Haven't got it yet, but kind of half-way between an expensive unit and the total DIY route.

I'm 99.9% positive that that's the one I mentioned above that I ordered and never touched. I might be able to give you a deal if I can dig it up ;-)

 

[mdesmarais]

Let me know! Maybe I can bury it at my house for a while. ;-)