LED strip driver

Introduction

The LED Strip Driver with a 4-pin interface provides easy connectivity to your standard Arduino device.

It can help you control the luminance of a single-color LED strip, as well as the color and the luminance of an RGB LED strip through Arduino.

It has 2 terminals and 2 interfaces. The power for LED strip comes in through the 2-pin terminal. And the LED controlling voltages output through the 4-pin terminal. The 2 interfaces are screen-printed “IN” for controlling data input and “OUT” for controlling data shared with the next strip driver, respectively.

It can drive an LED strip 1 to 2 meters long with 9 V, while 1 to 5 meters long with 12 V. The driver in conjunction with the colorful LED strips can add a wonderful effect to indoor or outdoor usages

Features

• compatible interface (3.3V/5V)

• Can be cascaded for a larger display, with each unit having independent outputs

• Best results achieved with LED strips 5 meters long or shorter

• Outputs PWM signals

• 256 gray-levels are adjustable via programming

• Arduino and MEGA compatible

• Screw Terminals (power input and control signal output interface)

Application Ideas

• Delightful stage light effect

• Indoor light decoration

Specification

Interface Description

• 12V power supply – Screw terminal for 9-12v power supply.

• Chainable Input – Connected to Arduino or the other driver's chainable output. Pin definition: CLK DIN NC GND.

• Chainable output – Connected to the other driver's chainable input. Pin definition: CLK DOUT NC GND

• LED strip interface – Screw terminals for LED strip. Pin definition: + B R G

Note: VCC of Arduino is not connected to the interface.

Usage

Hardware Installation

Ready To Hardware

• 2 LED Strip Driver boards
• 1 Arduino Duemilanove board
• 1 USB cable
• 6 male and 6 female Dupont wires.
• 1 flat screw driver
• 1 multiple meter
• 12V 1A DC power adaptor
• 1 PC
• 2 2m-long LED strips

How To Set up

• Step 1: Connect power adaptor.

Connect the 2 LED Strip Driver boards to the DC power adaptor.

Be cautious about polarity of the power supply even though the driver board has self protection. Do not plug the power adaptor into power outlet yet.

• Step 2: Connect hardware.

Connect as following:

1. Arduino P2 to Chainable input CLK

2. Arduino P3 to DIN

3. Ardunio GND to Chainable input GND

4. Chainable output CLK to next driver’s Chainable output CLK

5. DOUT to next driver’s DIN

6. GND to next driver’s GND

7. Driver’s “+”、“R”、“G”、“B” to LED strip’s 12V、R、G、B. Be cautious of the polarity and the spec of the LED strips.

• Step 3: Power on.

Plug the DC power adaptor into a power outlet. The LED lights start blinking once a second. Please note that the provided demo code can only control 2 LED strips. The code needs to be revised to control more than 2 LED strips.

Hardware setup of the LED Strip Driver and the LED strips

Programming

• Step 1: Download the LED Strip Driver library here and import it into Arduino-1.0 Libraries: ..\arduino-1.0\libraries.

• Step 2: Run Arduino and open File\Examples\LEDStripDriver\. There are 3 options DemoForWhiteLEDStrip, DualLEDStrip, and SingleLEDStrip.

• Step 3: Select the right Arduino board you are using, like Arduino UNO or Duemilanove or others, and select the right downloading serial port.

• Step 4: Upload the DualLEDStrip demo. Then you can see the alternate colors of red,green,and blue of the LED strip.

FAQ

Please list your question here:

Support

If you have questions or other better design ideas, you can go to our forum to discuss or creat a ticket for your issue at linksprite support.

See Also

Other related products and resources.

Licensing

This documentation is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0 Source code and libraries are licensed under GPL/LGPL, see source code files for details.