APA102 Digital LED Strip – 30 LED / Meter

$19.95

Availability: In Stock

Available

SKU: LEDS-004 Mfg Part Number: APA102-S30 Categories: , Tags: , ,

Description

These individually addressable LED strip lights are based on the APA102 chip (also known as the Dotstar). Unlike the popular WS2812 RGB strips which use a very timing specific control protocol, APA102 LEDs use generic 2-wire SPI, so you can push data much faster than with the WS2812 800KHz protocol and there’s no specific timing required. They also have much higher PWM refresh rates, so you can do Persistence-of-Vision (POV) and have less flickering, particularly at low brightness levels.

Like WS2812, the APA102 LEDs are 5050-sized LEDs with an embedded microcontroller inside the LED. You can set the color/brightness of each LED to 24-bit color (8 bits each red green and blue). Each LED acts like a shift register, reading incoming color data on the input pins, and then shifting the previous color data out on the output pin. By sending a long string of data, you can control an infinite number of LEDs, just tack on more or cut off unwanted LEDs at the end. The PWM is built into each LED-chip so once you set the color you can stop talking to the strip and it will continue to PWM all the LEDs for you.

However, unlike WS2812, these APA102 LEDs have 2 wires (input and output) for sending data – one clock pin and one data pin. That means you need two pins, not one, to control APA102s. Because the clock and data is separated, you can use any processor speed or type to control these strips, and you don’t have to worry about being careful with the timing. Hardware SPI support is handy but not required. This makes them excellent for use with any microcontroller or microprocessor, including Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, Propeller, SparkCore, and any ‘raw’ microcontrollers/microprocessors. It’s very easy to port the library, and you can send data to the pixels at up to 32MHz clock rate!

Each meter of APA102 can draw up to 1.8A in this 30 LED per meter density, so a fairly beefy power supply is required to run anything over a meter. We have 2A, 5A, and 10A 5V power supplies available depending on the size of your installation.

Please Note: Depending on the length of piece ordered, there may be a connector on one end. For orders of 5 meters a single 5 meter piece will be shipped with connectors on both ends.

 

Features

  • Width (with weatherstripping): 14mm / 0.55″
  • Thickness (with weatherstripping):  4mm / 0.16″
  • Operating temperature: -40°C – 40°C
  • Voltage: 5VDC
  • Width (w/o weatherstripping): 10mm / 0.4″
  • Pixel pitch: 33.3mm / 1.3″ between LEDs
  • 30 LEDs per meter
  • Peak Draw: 1.8A / meter

 

Resources

 

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  Difficulty Level

Soldering Skill: Beginner
Prototyping Skill: Beginner
Programming Skill: Beginner

  Product Certifications

  Product Attributes

Weight: 50 g

  Warranty Policy

This product has a 30 Day Warranty from the date of delivery. The item must not be modified, abused, incorrectly hooked up, or used for purposes outside the original scope of design.

  Return Policy

This product is Final Sale and cannot be returned once purchased. 

More Information:
For more information on our Warranty and Return Policies, please consult our   Terms of Service
 

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