Cool stuff: LED Effects

http://www.ledeffects.com/
As the site tells us, it is 104 days left to Christmas. So I am stepping up my search for programmable (indvidually addressable) LED strings, and found this site. Particularly interested in the DingDotz. Since they have a 10 LED Demo Kit for $99, it is much more feasible than CK's iColor Flex (hundreds for string of 50 plus DMX, plus thousand for software). I could get one to start, and perhaps add one every year.
Also, they have a 17-RGB MR16 (unlike CK's SRGB). However, it doesn't have the nice slide controllers on the side like CK.

also, myLED.com told me they are coming out with an adressable rope light this month. (But didn't e-mail back with the price).

Called yesterday and found that they have a showroom here in NY. SO I just came from there a little while ago, and saw the DingDotz!
They look truly amazing (of course, the picture does not do justice!) They are even better than the iColorFlex (which tends to be a bit more pastel looking).
It flashed through a wide range of colors (including a simulated incandescent color, which I wanted to make) and color combinations, basically what I wanted to make with them. And that was the CPU it came with, so I probably don't need any of the other controllers at all. (So just the $99 Demo, and $60 for software! Now, it's just scraping up this much, among the other expenses I have this fall).

They had many other cool LED products in the studio. For the first time I got to see incandescent white LED's (ones that emit that color; not the RGB's that mix the color). The 2500K's really look like incandescent light! (There were some that were the lighter shade, like early Compact Flourescents). A few had that variation of color that LED's often experience. But most were surprisingly uniform. They had both strips and even floodlight arrays. And the RGB tubes they have on the website.
One blue strip they had submersed in water as part of a test they are doing.
They didn't have the MR-16 or any of the other bulbs, however.

Hi EricB,

Sorry I haven't been working on your problem as I promised before....been busy with getting some bills paid!

Those products look good, the controller/software combo price have come down a long way. I've still got a price edge with my technology I think, maybe I can adapt it to their fittings and sell a multipurpose controller (that doesn't need a computer to setup) and let people hook up what ever LED product they wish....I wonder, if you purchase one of these things if you could email/pm or post some details on the electrical i/f to the LED units. If it's a simple PWM signal I can hook up to them.

Phil

Well, what is "i/f"?
I did see the controller opened, and is is just a little computer type chip on a board. There were four little holes for wires that they said is what anything else would be hooked to it through.

My earlier idea of taking MyLED's little tri-LED boards and hooking them together with a custom made controller was a (desperate) makeshift alternative to the iColorFlex. I prefer something like this that is manufactured as a string. So now, you're suggesting just making a controller and hooking it up to an existing string? I should have mentioned that it is only really 10 colors I am interested in: the basic RGB, YCMW, plus orange, purple and incandescent white. I pretty much saw these on the Dingdotz. It's just a matter of flashing different combinations, and it seemed to do this too. Now, I'm not sure if that was just its original CPU, or they had already programmed it with the software, or if the software is really even needed for that if the CPU is pre-programmed. (The people were oriental, and it was kind of hard to communicate, and I didn't want to take up too much of their time, plus, I was so excited by what I saw). And I hope that anything you design would cause any problem, like void the warranty, or whatever.

But thanks.