20 July 2021
Company News
The famous LED strips accross the world are consist of strands of LEDs and resistors connected in parallel that include flexible LED strips and rigid bar which based on the printed copper board materials. The LED strips also known as LED tapes. Today we mainly discuss the flexible led strips.
Flexible LED strips fall into two types: the "analog" one and "digital" one.
The digital led strips, as the digital name implies, it is deliver different colors. As we known, the Digital LED strips are consist of strands of LEDs, resistors and driver IC chips connected in series that each LED or LED strands to deliver differenct colors and ( or ) different brightnesses on multiple LEDs simultaneously.
Digital LED strips:
Digital LED strips are commonly designed as RGB, RGBW or other multi-color systems, although dynamic tunable white, dynamic white or other dynamic single color LED strips are available as well. The digital controllability of the strip lights is delivered by addressable LEDs which incorporate onboard circuitry to interpret control signals from a master controller and drive the LEDs in accordance with the commands.
Analog LED strips：
Analog LED strips are non-addressable lights that do not offer the ability to assign color or intensity to each LED individually. Of course, they are commonly designed as RGB, RGBW,RGBTW or other multi-color systems like tunabe white, single color LED strips. The LEDs mounted across the entire length of the strip or on the controlled circuit will respond to on and off switching or dimming control signals in the same fashion. You can change the color or intensity anytime you want for the entire analog strip, but can't change color playing for a section of LEDs or an individual LED.
Individually addressable LED strips:
Individually addressable LED strip is a special presence of digital led strips. Individually addressable LED strip is a digital linear LED array that has the ability to control every single LED, or discrete groups of LEDs, independent of the circuit to which the LEDs are connected.
The most common addressable LED is the IC chip integrated SMD LED packages such as 5050, 3535, 2427, 2020, 1515, etc. This integrated package provides a platform that allows the LED IC chips to be mechanically, thermally and electrically interfaced to their operating interface. The integrated LED is operated by an external driver which can be designed to dim the LED through PWM or constant current reduction. An integrated addressable LED includes all the components that constitute a standard SMD package, but please note, it is still differentiated with the inclusion of control circuitry that performs the function of an intelligent LED driver.
An addressable LED is essentially a smart, mini light engine that is driven and operated by an integrated microcontroller or microprocessor (controller IC). The controller IC provides diode-level control, which means each channel of a multi-color or multi-CCT LED package is individually controlled.
Expressions of invidually address RGB RGBW LED tapes:
There is a huge range of options out there for the integrated addresable LED include WS2812B, WS2813, WS2815, SK6812, SK5812, SK6813, SK9822, APA102, APA102C, GS8208, GS8512,HD107s,etc. Among these options WS2812B, SK6812, APA102C and SK9822 are the most widely used for the individually addressable LED strips. Other than the standard RGB version, the SK6812 addressable LEDs also have a RGBW version from 30 - 144 pixels density. From the individually addressable RGB/RGBW led tapes, you can see the surface is simple.
SK6812, WS2812B are a programmable constant current RGB controller that is integrated in an SMD 5050 package. This IC uses an NZR data transfer protocol via a specialized one-wire control interface and thus requires very precise timing of data signals. WS2813 , WS2815 and GS8208 embrace a dual signal wire design that allows signal break-point continuous transmission.
In contrast to the WS2812B and SK6812 control ICs that use a one-wire protocol, the APA102C uses a standard SPI for control with separate data and CLOCK signals. Operating over a generic 2-wire SPI bus allows the color and brightness of each LED channel to be controlled independently. With CLOCK LEDs also have much higher PWM refresh rates than the WS2812B and SK6812 LEDs, which make them less prone to flickering when recorded with an HD video camera and lend them to applications like POV displays.
Except the smart integrated RGB or RGBW leds to make the individually addressable led strips, external IC is another design.
Normally is one pcs IC chip to control one LED. You just need to be sure that every channel of IC chip to control each color of LED.
Working voltage for Individually addressable LED tapes:
Most individually addressable RGB and RGBW LED strips operate on 5V DC electrical power. However, there're products that work at 12V or 24V DC. Higher voltage power supplies are required when there's a need to drive higher voltage LEDs (e.g. the 12V GS8208 LEDs), to operate strips with LED strings having multiple LEDs connected in series, or to ensure consistent brightness and color on long run lengths.
How to play color changing individually:
Individually addressable RGB and RGBW LED tapes are connected to a compatible controller, where a valid command has to be sent through it to the addressable LEDs. They are often operated from embedded computers like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, SparkCore, and any microcontroller that have libraries allowing you to communicate with SPI devices. With 24-bit color control (8-bit PWM precision per channel) and individual addressability, the digital RGB,RGBW LED strips can be used to create an infinite variety of dynamic effects and intricate color patterns.
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Best regards from Art LED Team