The problem is that even though they may be 50/50's there are no chips on the ribbon. The ribbon is entirely controlled by that controller. If you look at the second picture of the ribbon they show one of the cut points. On that cut point you can see connections for the power and ground as well as connections for the Red, Green, and Blue LED connections. There should only be connections for power, ground and Signal. The RGB connections indicate that the control of these colors is being passed on down the line to the controller. Since the controller in this set directly controls the LED's instead of sending a control signal to chips on the string, it is not compatable with the smart string units.
