RGB LED Flex strips help

[mmais68569]

I am looking to next year all ready after spending hours on the roof putting up my Red, Green, Clear mini lights.
I want to add RGB flex strips next year & can find all the reviews I want to read on 5050, but has anyone tried 3528. here is a link to what I am looking at.

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Any help is appreciated.

          Mike

[jeffcoast]

looks like the RGB is in seperate LEDs on those strips. It also looks like the whole strip would be controlled as one complete unit. So, it would replace the individual strands you are using now, you wouldn't really gain any additional capabilities. The 5050s on the smartstring strips are all 3 colors on one. Plus they are individually controllable to be able to do chases and twinkle effects. Which is much more controll.

[jnealand]

One of the nice things about Smart Strings for me is that I have gone from 3 strings of lights per window with 3 extension cords and 3 controller channels/outlets to one string and one cat 5 for both power and signal.  That bad news is that I have to program each window with a couple of hundred channels versus 3 before.  But I gain more flexibility and functionality that I can even imagine how to use.  Give me a couple of years to settle into this and all will be well.

[mcm13yn]

Newbie here - Are you able to control the 5050 and 3528 with RJs hardward?  Can the power for the LEDs be supplied via CAT5?  Can you independently controlled the RGB or diode individually? 

[mykroft]

You can program them in string mode, so the whole strip is just 3 channel, but then you loose indv control of each led OR program them in hybrid mode, gets you indv control of each pixel, plus 3 more channels than what is actually there to control in string mode....

Myk

One of the nice things about Smart Strings for me is that I have gone from 3 strings of lights per window with 3 extension cords and 3 controller channels/outlets to one string and one cat 5 for both power and signal.  That bad news is that I have to program each window with a couple of hundred channels versus 3 before.  But I gain more flexibility and functionality that I can even imagine how to use.  Give me a couple of years to settle into this and all will be well.

[mykroft]

For RJ's start string hardware they HAVE to be the ones listed in the wiki, otherwise other RGB strips can be controlled via DMX, but they are in string mode if a strip, or can be indv module/node per dmx module like the $7 dmx controller on holidaycoro site.  You will also have to inject power into them yourself as well.

You can use cat5 for data/power but again its a seperate dmx module/controller per unit/string and power supply.  You can daily chain from unit to unit, just have to make sure you dont overload your power supply.

Myk

Newbie here - Are you able to control the 5050 and 3528 with RJs hardward?  Can the power for the LEDs be supplied via CAT5?  Can you independently controlled the RGB or diode individually?

[mcm13yn]

Thanks Gentlemen!  Can't say I fully understand, but as in my introduction I learn by trial and error so 164'/3000 LEDs are on order and we'll see what happens.  jp

[jnealand]

I used hybrid mode to start and then started adding some color chases using the individual nodes.  What was really fun was (I'm using Vixen 2.1) highlighting all the individual nodes and using the random function to make all the lights come on in random colors.  It looks like you are viewing a carnival site.  I used 20% saturation and 3 intervals at full intensity.  Really demonstrates the power of RGB.  I have one sequence that has no timing to music (although I have a song playing) and I just change what the lights are doing every 20 seconds, - all one color, all two different colors with every bulb alternating colors,  two color chases around my windows, slow chases, fast chases.  I was using this to test various effects and it looked good so I put it in the program rotation and everyone liked it.  Ended up being a 3min 40 sec sequence.

You can program them in string mode, so the whole strip is just 3 channel, but then you loose indv control of each led OR program them in hybrid mode, gets you indv control of each pixel, plus 3 more channels than what is actually there to control in string mode....

Myk

One of the nice things about Smart Strings for me is that I have gone from 3 strings of lights per window with 3 extension cords and 3 controller channels/outlets to one string and one cat 5 for both power and signal.  That bad news is that I have to program each window with a couple of hundred channels versus 3 before.  But I gain more flexibility and functionality that I can even imagine how to use.  Give me a couple of years to settle into this and all will be well.

[loveroflife96]

All these words and no video??  Do you have a website?  it sounds pretty cool to me!

I used hybrid mode to start and then started adding some color chases using the individual nodes.  What was really fun was (I'm using Vixen 2.1) highlighting all the individual nodes and using the random function to make all the lights come on in random colors.  It looks like you are viewing a carnival site.  I used 20% saturation and 3 intervals at full intensity.  Really demonstrates the power of RGB.  I have one sequence that has no timing to music (although I have a song playing) and I just change what the lights are doing every 20 seconds, - all one color, all two different colors with every bulb alternating colors,  two color chases around my windows, slow chases, fast chases.  I was using this to test various effects and it looked good so I put it in the program rotation and everyone liked it.  Ended up being a 3min 40 sec sequence.

[jnealand]

All these words and no video??  Do you have a website?  it sounds pretty cool to me!

Funny you should ask.  I finally was out taking video for the first time tonight and I find your comment.  I've taken video every year but I do not know the first thing about stripping off the recorded sound and adding back the mp3.  And I tend to take one long video of the whole show and I have no clue about splitting the video into individual pieces.  Other than that I have 4 years of video on my computer.  LOL  Someday learning how to edit the stuff will become a higher priority.  I've even bought Sony Vegas Movie Studio and have Microsoft Movie Maker loaded on my desktop and justified buying a core i7 machine just so I would have the power to do the editing.  It is all greek to me.

Now back to the original topic.  No more thread hijacking.

[Steve Gase]

If you use Windows, then install the free Windows Live tools... this includes Windows Live Movie Maker.

Inside movie maker you can drag video files and split them into pieces and assemble pieces together.
You can select each clip and change the volume level -- including down to 0%.
You can then drop a music sequence on the video that you have -- it would be set to 100%

Do this and you have edited your video and replaced the video sound with a clear mp3 track.