How to Wire Addressable LED Strip Lights ?
The addressable led strip lights(sometimes it is called programmable led strip lights, SPI digital led strip lights, or led pixel strip) means that it can have multiple colors on the same strip, unlike others, the entire strip must be the same color. And all this comes from the control of IC. One IC can control one LED light, which is called individually addressable led strip lights, and one IC is one pixel. If one IC controls multiple LED lights, then these multiple LED lights are one pixel, their brightness and color will change together. The brightness and color of each IC can be individually controlled, allowing you to produce amazing and complex effects in a simple way.
Total pixels of addressable led strip = Pixels(ICs)/meter * Length |
The positive and negative poles are power lines, and the others are signal lines. For signal transmission, the signal line should not be missed. The arrows of the led strip indicate the direction of data flow. If the SPI controller is not installed on the data input side, it will not work. If the addressable led strip needs to be powered separately, the power line should be connected to the power supply. Don't worry about how to judge whether the addressable led light strip needs a separate power supply, it will be discussed in detail in the following content.
Addressable LED |
V+ (Red) |
V- (Black) |
Signal 1 (Green) |
Signal 2 (Blue) |
Address |
VCC |
GND |
DAT |
|
|
|
VCC |
GND |
DAT |
CLK |
|
|
VCC | GND | DAT | Backup | ||
VCC | GND | A/DMX+ | B/DMX- | PI |
To fully understand the addressable LED strip lights: Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Right Addressable LED Strip
Addressable LED strip lights wiring diagram
Contents
1. What controller to use for your addressable led strips?
• How to solve the problem of insufficient pixels of the SPI controller?
2. How to install addressable led strip lights?
• How to connect the 3-pin JST connector to the Breakpoint Resume LED strips?
3. How to judge if the addressable led strip lights need to be powered separately?
• What is voltage drop? How to solve the voltage drop?
• LED Density and Voltage Drop
• How to power addressable LED strips and SPI controllers using different voltage power supplies?
4. How to wire long addressable lighting strips?
5. How to solve the LED light flickers?
What controller to use for your addressable led strips?
The SPI controller supports WiFi, RF, Bluetooth, Music, and Voice control(Alexa and Google Assistant). Built-in hundreds of well-written programs, users can choose the type through their hobbies, and use them for home and simple lighting projects that don't know how to program.
Advantages: Many procedures, low difficulty.
Disadvantages: Unable to choose a special program.
Please pay attention to two points about the SPI controller:
1) Whether the SPI controller can control the IC type of your addressable led strip.
How to solve the problem of insufficient pixels of the SPI controller?
1) Change to an SPI controller with more pixels.
We have the SPI controller that can connect 4 addressable led strips or 8 led light strips in parallel, which combines the functions of the SPI controller and the SPI amplifier.
2) Add one or multiple addressable SPI multi-channel amplifier to amplify the pixels.
The SPI amplifier has a completely different function from the non-addressable led strip lights amplifier. The number of pixels of the SPI amplifier is amplified by multiple channels. For example, the SPI controller has 600 pixels built-in, and 8*600 pixels can be connected behind the 8-channel amplifier.
*LED Strip lights amplifier wiring diagram*
3) Use WIFI or RF function to wirelessly synchronize multiple SPI controllers.
The grouping function should be controlled by a mobile phone, and there are single-channel controllers and dual-channel controllers.
*T-300K LED Strip lights wiring diagram*
*K-1000C LED Strip lights wiring diagram*
Disadvantages: Need to be able to use Mardix software.
*BC-204 DMX LED Strip lights wiring diagram*
*DSA Decoder LED Strip lights wiring diagram*
►Open source development board
The open source development board is represented by Arduino UNO and Raspberry PI. The development board is small and easy to use. It can be used in the complex environments and DIY projects, but it needs to know how to program.
How to install addressable led strip lights?
If the power supply, the SPI controller, and the addressable led strip are not in the same place, we usually choose to extend the distance between the light strip and the SPI controller, but this has the disadvantage that the SPI signal will attenuate. This signal attenuation can cause LED lights to flicker when running long addressable led light strips. The problem of SPI signal attenuation can be perfectly solved by installing a mini amplifier at a point in front of the light strip. We will mention in detail about the light strip flickers later.
*SPI LED Strip lights wiring diagram with 5m*
*SPI LED Strip lights wiring diagram with 10m*
How to connect the 3-pin JST connector to the Breakpoint Resume LED strips?
SPI Controller | Addressable LED Strip |
Dual-signal LED strip | |
Addressable led strip lights separate power supply wiring diagram
How to judge if the addressable led strip lights need to be powered separately?
What is voltage drop? How to solve the voltage drop?
How to power addressable LED strip and SPI controller using different voltage power supply?
How to wire long addressable lighting strips?
For running long distance, there are some addressable led strip light kits for you, up to 20 meters long RGB neon light kit and up to 50 meters long addressable light strip kit. We provide the controller and power supply options in the kits, solving the troblue of choosing the right controller and power supply. If the project is a circle, the two ends of the light strip can be touched or overlapped, and the same power supply can be shared. And if the project is linear, two power supplies are required to supply power to both ends of the light strip separately.
*SPI LED Strip lights wiring diagram with 20m+*
How to solve the LED light flickers?
This kind of problem is usually caused by the following two factors.
We need to add a MINI SPI amplifier in the closest area of the flicker. This amplifier is different from the above multi-channel amplifiers in that it only amplifies the attenuated SPI signal and cannot be amplified multiple times.
In North America, choose single-voltage power supply AC110-130V input as much as possible, and multiply the power of the light strip by 1.5 times when calculating the power supply in order to ensure sufficient output power of the power supply. If your led strip light requires 100W, then you'd better choose a 150W power supply. We have added a link for you on how to calculate the power for your led strip lights. You can click to jump to the page.
The following table is for reference only.
Power | Input | Output |
100W | AC110-130V | 90W |
100W | AC 85-265V | |
100W | AC220-240V | 100W-110W |
More LED strip wiring diagram:
How to wire single color led strip lights?
How to wire tunable white/CCT led strip lights?