Repurpose Adressable LED chips for Large LED array?

[TheNuzziNuzz]

I would like to make a string of Daisy Chain-able Addressable LEDs that are very brigt on their own and can each be around 5-10 feet apart.

I thought a good way to do this is to use WS2811 Chips that are normally used in LED Strips, and use transistors on their RGB outputs instead of small LEDs that will go to a much larger light.

 

This would allow for easy expand-ability because I would just need to add another daisy chain-able chip every time I want to add a new LED and it would all be able to be controlled by a small Arduino Mega.

 

Does this sound possible to you guys? Any suggestions? Should I use WS2811 or a different chip? What are the actual components inside the chips? So far i've found these. Is there a better way to do this?

 

Thanks !

[Pixel5]

so the idea is to run 3 wires to somewhere and at this point you have an RGB LED controlled by mosfets which are controlled by the WS2811?

 

This is possible but it may be much simple to have the arduino and WS2811 with all the mosfets in one place and run wires to each LED because you will anyhow need many wires everywhere as the LED´s you use will probably not be 5V.

 

If you centralize the control circuits you can have everything there run on 5V and then send 12V or whatever you need for the LED´s via the wires that lead to them.

This also makes it easy to expand because you could design yourself a small PCB with WS2811 and mosfets that you can daisy chain as you like, the only real work there is running the wires you need but you could use some Ethernet cables each of which could drive two LEDs and should be able to handle the power

[TheNuzziNuzz]

2 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

so the idea is to run 3 wires to somewhere and at this point you have an RGB LED controlled by mosfets which are controlled by the WS2811?

 

This is possible but it may be much simple to have the arduino and WS2811 with all the mosfets in one place and run wires to each LED because you will anyhow need many wires everywhere as the LED´s you use will probably not be 5V.

 

If you centralize the control circuits you can have everything there run on 5V and then send 12V or whatever you need for the LED´s via the wires that lead to them.

This also makes it easy to expand because you could design yourself a small PCB with WS2811 and mosfets that you can daisy chain as you like, the only real work there is running the wires you need but you could use some Ethernet cables each of which could drive two LEDs and should be able to handle the power

Thats exactly what I'm doing.

 

The only reason I want the circuits next to the LEDs and not near the arduino is because I wan't the lights to be daisy changeable to eachother. This would make setting up Matrixes SOO much easier because I wouldn't have to fan dangle with the order of things.Also it would be much easier in expand ability.

 

WS2811 only need two wires. One for Data and one for power. More importantly though, I will need to make sure I have enogh power for whatever LED they connect too because its going to be alot more than just one small LED. So Having multiple Twisted Pairs for power would be a good idea. I already have almost two rolls of Cat5e/Cat6 too. Also having to run a Cat5 to each LED would actually end up costing significantly more in cabling than just daisy chainning, not to mention the cable management hell.

 

 

So how do you think I could build the control circuits? I havn't done stuff like this before so I don't really know where to start. I was hoping to find a schematic for the WS2811 IC and build a bigger, beafy version?

 

[TheNuzziNuzz]

3 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

so the idea is to run 3 wires to somewhere and at this point you have an RGB LED controlled by mosfets which are controlled by the WS2811?

 

This is possible but it may be much simple to have the arduino and WS2811 with all the mosfets in one place and run wires to each LED because you will anyhow need many wires everywhere as the LED´s you use will probably not be 5V.

 

If you centralize the control circuits you can have everything there run on 5V and then send 12V or whatever you need for the LED´s via the wires that lead to them.

This also makes it easy to expand because you could design yourself a small PCB with WS2811 and mosfets that you can daisy chain as you like, the only real work there is running the wires you need but you could use some Ethernet cables each of which could drive two LEDs and should be able to handle the power

I have linked what I find to be the IC https://www.adafruit.com/product/1378

 

I imagine in would be too small to connect an entire led strip too. I could either put transistors on the PWM out and connect power to them, or figure out whats inside this chip and buid a beefier version? Which do you think will be the least expensive?

[Pixel5]

i cant not open the link right now because adafruit doesnt load at my workplace due to proxy restrictions.

 

you will most likely end up using the PWM outputs to control transistors or mosfets that then feed power to the LEDs you could probably combine everything into a small package that can be mounted on the LED´s and runs of whatever voltage your LED´s need.

 

THis is the first and very important question, what kind of LED´s are you driving with this, this decides what else you need in order to do what you want.

[TheNuzziNuzz]

7 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

i cant not open the link right now because adafruit doesnt load at my workplace due to proxy restrictions.

 

you will most likely end up using the PWM outputs to control transistors or mosfets that then feed power to the LEDs you could probably combine everything into a small package that can be mounted on the LED´s and runs of whatever voltage your LED´s need.

 

THis is the first and very important question, what kind of LED´s are you driving with this, this decides what else you need in order to do what you want.

I wan't the flexibility to use whatever LEDS I wan't in the future, how does this decide what else I need? The most universal soloution I could think of using is simply regular RGB led strips

 

And the link is just to a page to buy the IC. It has PWM outs.

[Pixel5]

the LEDS you wanna use decide about what kind of mosfets you would need to drive the leds.

 

if you want to do it with simple LED strips you can just buy them ready made and don't need anything but an arduino to control them, but since you stated you want to use much larger lights this means you need more parts to control them and what parts you need depends on the power you need.

 

as an absolute minimum of information you should check what kind of LED´s would be the maximum you would want to drive as downscaling is always easier.

[TheNuzziNuzz]

5 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

the LEDS you wanna use decide about what kind of mosfets you would need to drive the leds.

 

if you want to do it with simple LED strips you can just buy them ready made and don't need anything but an arduino to control them, but since you stated you want to use much larger lights this means you need more parts to control them and what parts you need depends on the power you need.

 

as an absolute minimum of information you should check what kind of LED´s would be the maximum you would want to drive as downscaling is always easier.

I currently have a "worst Case" scenario working with these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06W9F1QGF/ref=od_aui_detailpages01?ie=UTF8&psc=1, 10ft of LED strip

[Pixel5]

it seems i still dont understand what exactly you want to do.

 

you want regular addressable LED strips and combine them with some other RGB LED´s that you will drive with individual Ws2811 chips?

[TheNuzziNuzz]

1 minute ago, Pixel5 said:

it seems i still dont understand what exactly you want to do.

 

you want regular addressable LED strips and combine them with some other RGB LED´s that you will drive with individual Ws2811 chips?

I don't understand what you said...

 

 

I want a simple, expandable way to control many single color RGB led strips. So I thought of using the same IC as used in Addressable ones and repurposing them to instead of power a small LED power a whole strip. Does that make sense?

[Pixel5]

ah ok so a regular RGB leds strip with a seperate power line for each color.

 

then the question is will you have so many of these being one a different color that using the WS2811 will make sense?

 

[TheNuzziNuzz]

Just now, Pixel5 said:

ah ok so a regular RGB leds strip with a seperate power line for each color.

 

then the question is will you have so many of these being one a different color that using the WS2811 will make sense?

 

Your still not understanding.

 

Not a seperate power line. The RGB input will be controled by the IC that would normally control the color of single LED on an adressable LED strip

 

I will have tons, and expandability is very important.

[Pixel5]

but in order to change the color on an RGB LED strip that does not have ws2811 build in you need to have one ground connection and then one positive for each color.

 

sometimes this is also reversed and you have one +12V line and multiple grounds to control the colors like this one.

https://meine-leds.com/Schnellverbinder-Clip-fuer-10mm-RGB-LED-Strips-zB-SMD5050-4-pol

 

this is where you would connect to the WS2811 or the mosfets that are controlled by the ws2811.

[TheNuzziNuzz]

1 minute ago, Pixel5 said:

but in order to change the color on an RGB LED strip that does not have ws2811 build in you need to have one ground connection and then one positive for each color.

 

sometimes this is also reversed and you have one +12V line and multiple grounds to control the colors like this one.

https://meine-leds.com/Schnellverbinder-Clip-fuer-10mm-RGB-LED-Strips-zB-SMD5050-4-pol

 

this is where you would connect to the WS2811 or the mosfets that are controlled by the ws2811.

Yes, exactly. I strips I've been using are all +12 and PWM ground for each color. I would connect A transistor to the PWM of the WS2811 IC to each RGB on the STRIP. All the power will and data will be going through the same Cat5. That is currently my plan.

[Pixel5]

for the data this is no problem, for power you need to check how much amps you will draw at max with your installation.

 

but then your mosfets should be fine and are absolutely the highest you could realistically need, then you really just need to make a PCB to connect to the RGB strip that accepts the power and data as well to be daisy chained.