Fresh meat playing with a dc board HELLLPPPPPP!

[s.w.electrical]

Hi every one

I have just recently bought 2X DC Boards and i am looking at running my 3528 RGB LED strips with it.

here is where my problem starts i had a bit of a look at the circuitry on the board and the triac appears to be controlling the negitive output rather than the positive

Here is a diagram of what i was planning to do

i feel like i have bitten off more than i can handle any help on getting this set up to work would be greatly appreciated

[Steven]

Most LED strips are common-anode (positive). If your strip is common-negative, and expects the positive output to be controlled, then your strip is unusual.

If you do have a common-anode strip then you can use a converter like this one:

[edvas69]

This strip was most probably bought from Ebay that would have a simple controller to control it\

The controllers we use in our hobby and is most common in use is the common +, so that means it is the -V that is switched and not the +V, the reason for this is that it is cheaper to build the controllers when switching the -V.

So with dumb RGB lights this means you can only use common anode (+) as the controller that are used in the hobby will only switch the -V

This is not an issue when using intelligent RGB lighting as the LEDs on those strip have the LED IC driver on the strip.

Now the LED strip you got is also not RGB it is a play on words from the EBay vendor, you will find that the strip is made up of individual red, green and blue led sections, so colour mixing will not be achievable to any great degree. The 3538 LEDs do not come in RGB it is the 5050 LEDs that come in RGB and this is what you need to use if you want colour changing/mixing strip.

But the above solution from Steven will work

Edited August 30, 2012 by edvas69

[s.w.electrical]

This strip was most probably bought from Ebay that would have a simple controller to control it.

This is not an issue when using intelligent RGB lighting as the LEDs on those strip have the LED IC driver on the strip.

Now the LED strip you got is also not RGB it is a play on words from the EBay vendor, you will find that the strip is made up of individual red, green and blue led sections, so colour mixing will not be achievable to any great degree. The 3538 LEDs do not come in RGB it is the 5050 LEDs that come in RGB and this is what you need to use if you want colour changing/mixing strip.

But the above solution from Steven will work

#Hit the nail on the head there, cheap ebay rox for experimenting

#I have a 5m strip of 1903IC rgb led with no controller. i am yet to look into how to control them using the LOR system.

# I have both 3538 and 5050 rgb led's and from the street the colour mixing is almost the same but up close the difference is obvious.

but this still does not tell me if i can run an rgb string using 3 channels on my dc board? ASSUMING my rgb strip is common +12v

[Santas Helper]

but this still does not tell me if i can run an rgb string using 3 channels on my dc board? ASSUMING my rgb strip is common +12v

Yes, you can run the rgb using three channels on your DC board.

[edvas69]

If its common anode (+) then you can run it straight from nearly all DC controllers used in our hobby. If its common cathode (-) then you will need to use something like what is mentioned above in Stevens post to connect between your DC controller and your lights, this will convert the outout from a common anode (+) to a common cathode (-)

Edited August 31, 2012 by edvas69