Quoted from fooflighter:Good stuff here. Totally understand the risk part and thank you for sharing. I did probe both ports on the PCB and they are a constant 5V with the data line being around 2.35V.
So quick question....If the hotrail on the left side is shorter let's say, and I put a longer strand underneath the cab, when the hotrail meets the end of the strand, does the longer one lose the addressable signal for any leds over the number of the shorter strip? Just wanted to run the entire under cab length...but I guess a solution would be just to mimick the hotrails number of LED's per side below the cab...or use one rail signal and split that signal between both led's cabs below the cab to get uniform led count...
Good question; and I can't wait to see this done to an LE bc it deserves it without restrictions if someone tells you it can't be done.
I've yet to see a gnr in person, but from what I can see on yt it seems both hotrails are in synchronization.. ..front to back/back to front..aka identical..?
However, if the left/right hotrails' leds sometimes go in different directions; then you have to separate/tap the left and the right rails' signal separately.
On that note, let's say the left rail is -15 leds vs. the right, it will definitely flow and look good under/behind the cabinet just as well (so yes, mimick the # of leds per side); but to get the full "swirling" effect you will need to use/tap both the left and signal wires separately. (You can still use the same ext power supply to power them...you just need to seperate the signal).
I can not say this enough or loud enough, so I apologize for all of the 'boomers' that people on here mention with CAPS, or whoever else in advance and please don't be offended...
...DO NOT EVER TAP INTO ANY CURRENT POWER SUPPLY ON A PIN TO POWER ANYTHING ELSE BESIDES WHAT IT WAS DESIGNED TO POWER ON BOARD ALREADY....EVER!!! (Secondary voltage-power supplies are cheap and easily wired without pulling amps from/stressing an existing board of any kind...and the engineers behind these masterpieces are 'kinda' smart).
In a nutshell, you seemingly have 5v addressable leds..as you've proved.
WS2812B are pretty much the standard addressable leds, so I'd go with them and the power supply I mentioned. Good measurement on the sub-power signal voltage.
You might have 2 different led signal inputs (left/right) giving the hotrails their signals depending on if they always go in the same addressable direction or not.
Get that external power supply (DO NOT USE CURRENT BOARDS FOR POWER EVER) and match the # of leds underneath and behind accordingly and you won't notice a difference. It will glow beautifully.
If both hotrails react the same the entire gameplay, then you can just use one signal wire from either of them for awesomeness in your near future. If not, again, use the left signal hotrail wire for your under/behind cab leds and the right the same.
I used 16-18 gauge speaker wire from Walmart to run everything on my FH. <<<you don't want to go with less strands of wire (or way to heavy) when passing signal/power to these oh so sensitive things like this.
Keep us posted and can't wait to see this in action.