help driving LED strip lighting

Hi, I would like to use Netduino to drive RGB LED strip lighting. The strip draws .5 Amp per meter. What sort of add-on board or other devise would I use to take the digital output and control the power to the LEDs? I am interested in the "animating" the LED strip with different colors and patterns. A simple matter of programming :-) Thanks!

What LED strip are you using? I have tried 4 different LED solutions for my project. Depending on what you have you might want to check out this thread. http://forums.netdui...ting-some-code/

Are you looking to do something along the lines of this (from Twitter user Travis Feirtag)? http://twitpic.com/3xsjr6

Are you looking to do something along the lines of this (from Twitter user Travis Feirtag)?
http://twitpic.com/3xsjr6

Heh, that is the sparkfun led strip

I think the post you referred to will help greatly, thanks! Since my original post I discovered the power driver shield http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10305 and ordered one. The strip I ordered is 5 meters. I didn't realize there are ones with individually addressibe LEDs. I think the one I ordered just has RGB which will turn on all of the same color at once. Anyway thanks for the info, once everything arrives I will let the group know how it works out.

I think the one I ordered just has RGB which will turn on all of the same color at once. Anyway thanks for the info, once everything arrives I will let the group know how it works out.

That's what I was wondering. I did the same thing at the beginning of my project. You need some way to control the LEDs - so some shift registers or a LED driver. I used the TLC5947 which is just a fancy shift register that supports PWM.

Here's my order of events. First I made sure I could use the TLC5947 with some RGB LEDs I had


Then I found a 12v LED strip.


Then I found the Bliptronics LED pixels.


After having some issues with that Sparkfun came out with their addressable LED strip.

I received (and assembled) my power driver shield kit but am not clear on how to use it The first thing that is a problem is that it has an ATX power supply connector, when I hook up a power supply and turn it on the fan doesn't run. On a PC the power supply only runs when you press the power switch connected to the motherboard, so I am assuming some of the pins need to be tied together to tell the power supply to run. Anyone know about this? It is of course possible that I did a poor job on soldering the components on the shield, but I used to be a Ham Radio operator and was pretty good at soldering, but it has been a while. Anyway I have a meter long LED strip that I want to use, so now I just need to get the shield going.

According to this page:
http://freespace.vir.../psu/atxpsu.htm

The ATX supply however is a little more tricky to test, as it uses a 'soft' power switch and requires an external load. In order to start, the supply must be loaded to at least 20W or (10% rated power), below this the supply may run, but regulation will be very poor.

This load can be achieved by connecting 4 or 5 paralleled 4R7 power resistors into a convenient drive power connector (across the 5V rail, between black and red). If the test is to last more than a couple of seconds ensure adequate heat sinking has been provided.

To start the supply simply short between pins 14 and 15 with a wire link.

I've seen people mention the shorting of pins without mentioning the required external load as well.

That said I have to imagine the shield has a way to kick on the PSU without having to short with a pin...