Controller in the flexible and rigid strips?

[bubblehead]

I thought I read on the wiki that RJ put a controller of his own design in the Smart Strings. 
If you follow the links in the equipment wiki for the flexible and the rigid strips, it seems to show that they use a TM1809 driver controller chip.  So I have a couple questions before I order:

• Are these the right items to buy to use with the SSCs?
• Do the rigid/flexible strips in fact use this controller chip?
• Do the other smart strings also use this chip?

[rrowan]

The links in the wiki Node chart will take you to Ray Wu site and approved items to work with the SSCs

RJ didn't design a controller for the lights just asked the company to put the 12v driver chip (i.e.: tm1809) on the set of lights they already had. He paid for the design changes and new molds for it.

Rick R.

[rm357]

Partially correct.

RJ worked with Ray Wu to make sure that the items specified in the wiki were properly configured for the hardware/firmware he was designing. The 180x series chips can be set for multiple speeds. RJ uses the 800KHz speed. If you buy somthing other than what is listed in the wiki, it may be configured for the 400KHz or 1.6MHz speed, which will not work with the current SSC firmaware.

The 1809 is a 9 channel chip which can control 3 independent RGB LEDS and is used in the flexible and rigid strips.
The 1803 and newer 1804 are 3 channel controllers which will do one RGB LED (or in the case of the module, multiple LEDs that are wired together).

The 1804 chips seem to be somewhat forgiving on the data rate. The 1809 chips are not.

RM

[bubblehead]

Thanks.  I just wanted to make sure the links in the wiki were correct before ordering.

--Mike

[gatorengineer]

I just want to make sure I am absolutely clear.  If I buy a the flexible strip from the Ray Wu's store, it will have 120 nodes (this is a fact) and each node will have 3 channels for a total of 360 channels for the strip.

In RJ's video I could not tell if he was controlling each LED individually or in pairs of 3's.

[gatorengineer]

Well wouldn't you know it.  I've looked for this answer for 3 days now and couldn't find it.  15 minutes later, I found it.  The answer is yes each LED is controllable and has 3 channels for a total of 360 channels.  Here is RJ's post that told me the answer.

This is the simple no confusion answer,


If you are running the Smart String Controller in individual mode where you can control each node seperate:

   The flexible strips are 3 channel per led. So 4 meters x 30 leds per meter = 360 channels.

  Each module Square or rectangle is 3 channels (forget about the 3 leds they do the same thing).

  Ridge can not be cut (not reasonably anyway) it is 30 leds so it is 90 channels per bar.

   I would recommend from mixing and matching different things on the same controller. The color order can get you if you do that.  not all are RGB some are BGR ect.  The SSC will handle this for you so you work with them all as RGB but not per item on the string.


If you run the SSC in String mode then:


     The whole sting of whatever you have is just three channels total.

             RJ

[chrisatpsu]

the only items that work with the SSC's AND are in groups of three leds, are the plastic rectangles, and the metal squares.
each node is a seperate physical piece of metal (or plastic) and has three led's on it. when you assign the color for that node, all three led's turn to the color you are setting it for. (if you set the node to red, there will be three led's showing red. if you set it to purple, there will be three led's set to purple.)

everything else, you can control each individual led.