12v RGB LED How to Guide

Howyas!

Got myself a job lot of 12volt Architectural LEDs, 7 meter mixed bag of health and blown fuses.
The system I bought had no controller and was designed for mains on a beefy ass transformer (not shown because I traded it for more spares).
Also they were set in aluminium trunking with a transparent plastic face cut into 1m sections.
This meant I had to solder all the sections back together on 4 core.
If you buy it off the roll they come in 5m sections (maxium an individual driver can facilitate)
After every third led is a cutting/splicing point indicated by a scissors marker and +, R, G, B polarity markers for soldering.
Soldering the contacts was the most precise I've ever had to be. The contacts are insulated with a thin layer of plastic that will melt under the iron but otherwise stays intact.
the contacts are 2mm apart so i recommend only exposing 3mm of the cores and priming the wire with solder first. Do not blob solder onto the contacts unless you have to because it just gets too messy.
Always making sure the iron is hot enough to melt the solder before contact because waiting for it to heat while pressed to a wire will melt the insulation and expose more than is useful.

Leds in trunking near.jpg

LED Drivers.jpg

3 pin dmx lead, Cat 5 lead, 4 core 12v cable strip.jpg

6 channel non programmable lighting desk with master fader.jpg

Cutting Point.jpg

Soldered Contacts.jpg
System test.jpg

The basic elements of this system are

Power:

I have a fused and switched double cigarette lighter socket off the leisure batteries run into the living quarters on 32amp mains cable. (4mm cores to reduce voltage drop) so this is my socket for power. I bought another 3 way extension to send power to the Led drivers (I need 2 for two banks of 3.5 meters) and the desk power (the driver 12v inputs can be linked in parrallel or on individual plugs it makes no difference except to cabling). This involves finding a cigarette lighter plug chopping the lead and wiring in to the drivers direct on the bare ends (again on 4mm cores). I often keep the spare plugs from devices as sometimes i rather to chop them and swap them for croc clips or something else more permanent. 12v plugs are usually centre positive but always check continuity and polarity before plugging anything in. Reversed DC polarity kills electronics quite imminently.
Switched, fused 12v&Usb sockets.jpg


Control:

The drivers i used recieve signal from a 512 DMX protocol. One had a Cat 5 Input/Output the other telephone I/O ports and an IR sensor for a remote control that wasn't bundled. It doesn't matter which direction you run them because the ports are in parallel. The drivers output three channels 1: Red 2: Green 3: Blue. I didn't get a controller with the kit so i purchased the cheapest I could find which was a 6 channel non-progammable lighting desk with a master fader. Unfortunately this was 9v dc as the only 12v version I could find required a minimum order of 50 units.
So I hit maplins for a 12v variable adaptor with a cigarette lighter plug.
The desk output is 3 pin DMX (or XLR or microphone cable) so I needed to create a 3 pin Dmx male to Cat 5 (RJ45 or ethernet) lead to control the driver.
DMX to Cat5 Wiring Code.jpg
DMX to Cat 5 Lead.jpg

(notes on wiring codes; DMX comes in 3 and 5 pin for these purposes you can ignore the 4th and 5th pins)
I figured the easiest thing was to get a cat 5 lead and cut it keeping the head intact and solder the bare ends into the DMX male head...mostly because i don't have a cat 5 crimper. If you do, and would rather work vice versa it may work or it prove bothersome because standard dmx has thicker cores than cat 5 making crimping more troublesome.

Desk to driver on 3pin DMX to Cat 5, then driver to driver on cat 5.

I wanted all the leds to react as one so i addressed both drivers to 1 by flicking up the first dip switch (this is an additive addressing system).
Alternatively i could address one driver to 1 and the second to 4 (dip switch 3 up) that would arrange the faders 1-3 on the desk to control one side and 4-6 to do the other.

Fixed Layout.jpg

There are two drivers shown above the CT...has an IR sensor but no included remote and telephone inputs/outputs
the PX...has cat 5 input/outputs so i used two of these drivers for convenience.

Driver Inputs:

Signal IN/OUT on Cat 5 from DMX Controller
12v +
12v -

Driver outputs:

Theorically simple as can be; Live (+) output to led +, R(-) to R, G(-) to G and B(-) to B.
In practive may take a few attempts to solder cleanly.
Leds can be cut or extended to facilitate corners etc. by linking the contacts marked on the cutting points to its partener with soldered 4 core cable.

Tips;

• Personally I always try to hide the source of LED light because it looks gaudy. This makes the trunking very handy. I also ran them in a trough near my roof this way you only see the mixed colours and not the "bulbs".

• Where-ever possible insulate your soldering as the Led strips are flexible and prone to shorting. I did it with electrical tape but silicon would be more professional.

• In theory RGB control lets you mix every colour; red + green = amber -> yellow, red + blue = purple -> magenta, green + blue = marine -> cyan, red + green + blue = white. In practice however it gives you about 15 colours depending on the LED quality.

• A 12volt controller running off a 12v battery is much more efficent than a 9v running off 12volt.

• Don't even bother with PP3's (normal 9v dry cell batteries) as they only last about 8 hours.

• If I had a the remote for the CT... driver I wouldn't need the lighting desk or any of the signal end of things, but a replacement remote was only slightly cheaper (because I'd have to buy a new driver with it) and I prefer mixing colour with faders.

• If you want them to flash or automatically scroll through colours then you'll need a programable desk or the CT... driver with remote or similar. Can't imagine it helping you read though.

• Don't put them on yer undercarraige they'll only highlight yer rust.

Blue.jpg

Green.jpg

Lav.jpg

Marine.jpg

Red.jpg

sorry above images didn't come out so well because it's just a phone camera..you get the idea though

White.jpg

http://www.maplin.co.uk/12v-twin-cigarette-socket-adaptor-with-2-x-usb-charging-sockets-228620
http://www.maplin.co.uk/12v-triple-socket-adaptor-228618
http://www.maplin.co.uk/1a-regulated-car-power-adaptor-37423
http://cpcireland.farnell.com/transcension/sdc-6/6-channel-dmx-controller/dp/DP28342

the led strips, drivers and transformers (if you want one...but i don't see the point) are easy enough to find online i just haven't sourced any cos i got my bundle for €30 and a favour :cool:
don't know where you'd find the cable either all of what i used i had lying about the gaff already.

the trunking that came with it was branded "falcon trunking..something..something"...hopefully that helps:rolleyes:

Dipswitch settings;
this is a basic additive addressing system of selecting 512 channels from 9 switches

1 = 1
2 = 2
3 = 4
4 = 8
5 = 16
6 = 32
7 = 64
8 = 128
9 = 256
10 = 512 or function select usually, don't know in this case never needed to find out...probably for colour control without DMX.

Therefore if you switch 1 and 2 on you get 3
switches 1 and 2 and 3 = 7
3 and 7 = 68
etc.
Dipswitches.jpg