Hardware: LedStrips
The TeensyStripController can control ledstrips which are using WS2811, WS2812 and compatible chips (please let me know if you have successfully tested other chips).
Ledsstrips using these chips are widely available, e.g. Ebay, AliExpress, Adafruit (Neopixels). Prices are constanly changing (mostly going down) so check out severeal sources to get a good price.
When buying ledstrips make sure you always order a bit more than the required amount. The strips and leds are low cost china products and it is always good to have some spares at hand if a led fails (if a led fails all leds after the failed led will not work anymore too). Usually you can just cut out the part of the strip with the failed led and solder in a replacement part.
Injecting power
WS2811/WS2812 based led strips are a bit picky when it comes to power supply. First of all, your power supply has to be strong enough. The strips operate on 5 volts and will consume up to 60mA per RGB-led. That doesn't sound like much, but it adds up fast. E.g. 1 meter of strip with 60 leds will need up to 3.6A.
If you use a lot of leds, make sure you inject power within you strips as well. I recommend to inject power at least after every 150-200 leds. Good spots to inject power are both ends of your ledstrips and if you connect several segments of led strip also on the joints between the led strips.
Dont use thin wires to inject power. Depending on the number of leds quite a few A are transported through the cabling. If the wires are to thin voltage drops can occur (leads to unreliable operation) and the wire can get hot.
Heat
Leds strips can get quite warm if bright colors (e.g. white) are shown for a while or if power is not injected at reggular intervals. If you have a chance, it is a good idea to mount the strips on some material which can help the cooling of the strips a bit. Aluminum works great, but be careful about shortcuts (see next paragraph).
Applying the led strips on conductive material
Be careful when applying the led strips on conductive material. "Officially" they are isolated on their bottom side, however from experience I can tell that this isolation is not always working.
Therefore I recommend you push only gently when applying the strips on conductive material. Even better is to have some additional non conductive layer beneath the led strip (Scotch tape worked well for me).
If a part of your led strip doesn't work after it has been mounted on conductive material, it often helps if you gently lift of the strip a bit in the area where the strip stops working.
Connecting segments of led strip
Led strips with WS2811 and WS2812 can easily be connected in a daisy chain fashion by connecting the VCC, GND and Data lines of the ends of the 2 segments.
From personal experience I recommend the following when connecting those strips:
- The strips have some protective coating on them which also covers the solder pads of the strips. This makes soldering a bit more difficult than necessary. Therefore it is best if this coatings is removed from the pads before soldering. Some sanding paper or even a Dremel works great to remove the coating. After the coating has been removed the now clean copper is clearly visible.
- After the the coating has been removed it helps if you apply some solder to the pads of the strips as well as to the ends of the wires you want to use for the connection before actually connecting them.
- After the solder has been applied, connecting the strips is easy by simply holding the end of the wire on to the right pad and using the solder iron to heat up the connection point until the solder is molten again and the wire is properly connected to the strip.