Converting cheap multicolor LED tape to addressable LEDs?

[Galane]

I've been seeing some rather inexpensive multicolor LED tapes with a control box attached which can have color patterns move along the tape. To me that implies the controller is sending signals to a number of the LEDs then repeating that pattern down the string.

I'm wondering if I could take one of those cheaper than a tape of Neopixels units and replace its control box with an Arduino or other programmable control system and individually address the multicolor LEDs?

I have a project that needs 80 multicolor LEDs in a 16x5 grid, with programmable colors, and in a separate unit 80 switches, with each switch controlling the on/off state of one LED. The current setup is a vintage thing from the 1960's with a very 'brute force' setup that simply has a large number of wires inside a flexible tube.

Cutting that down to an Ethernet or USB cable would be very nice, as would being able to use different colors for the lights instead of just the white incandescent bulbs being on or off, and frequently burning out then being expensive to replace because they run on 28V DC.

 

[Dave_H]

removed (duplicate)

 

[Dave_H]

Many low-end RGB strips have all R, G, and B wired in parallel so the each colour can be controlled independently, but all LEDs in the string are the same, so no moving patterns possible. There is a variant with separate R,G, and B LEDs spaced out, also with parallel control, so has some limited moving pattern capability.

I think what you refer to uses serially-controlled LEDs which are daisy-chained. Have a look at World-Semi WS2811 driver chip; or WS2812 integrated with RGB LED. This gives independent control of each LED in the string, lots of pattern capability. I have no experience with this, but someone on here should have, or know someone who has reverse-engineered the serial data protocol to work on R-Pi, Arduino etc.

Dave

 

[LEDphile]

Probably easier to just buy the LEDs used in the strips instead of trying to cut down a strip. They are easy enough to find online - Adafruit is one such vendor (they sell them as "Neopixels") and as a hobbyist-oriented vendor, also has Arduino examples.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

+1 for Adafruit. They carry tons of addressable RGB and RGBW strips along with tutorials on how to drive them from an Arduino, RaspberryPi or a FadeCandy module. Check out their Dotstar line also, which works better for faster patterns and video, Dotstar is all 2-wire SPI.