LED Garland Controller Schematic Circuit Diagram

Currently, you can purchase diverse LED garland at affordable prices. These garlands allow you to illuminate both indoor and outdoor objects, creating captivating lighting effects. If you opt for a garland equipped with RGB LEDs. You can produce a wide array of colors or create a continuous cycle through the color spectrum.

Enhancing Kitchen Cabinets with Custom LED Lighting

In this project, the author aimed to upgrade multiple kitchen cabinets by installing a unique lighting system. To achieve this, a waterproof LED garland with built-in resistors was selected. This specific type of garland is available for purchase and comes in lengths of up to 5 meters (approximately 16 feet). It includes double-sided sticky tape for easy mounting on any clean, flat surface. The LEDs in the strip require a supply voltage of 12 V, and the power consumption for the author’s chosen strip is 7.2 watts per meter.

DIY RGB LED Garland Controller

For hobbyist electronics enthusiasts, designing a controller for RGB LED garlands is an exciting challenge. While various commercial controllers are available. The author opted to create a customized one using an ATtiny2313 microcontroller, a 5 V voltage regulator, and three power transistors. The microcontroller’s port pins (PD0 to PD2) drive the power transistors through base resistors. The program within the ATtiny allows precise control over the brightness of the red, green, and blue LEDs using an internal pulse-width controller. The code ensures continuous color changes in the LED garland. Additionally, the program can be customized before programming the microcontroller, enabling adjustments to the speed, number of color changes, or activation of a self-test feature. The self-test displays sequential red, green, and blue colors followed by white, verifying the functionality of all LEDs in the strip. Each LED color draws slightly over 200 mA/m.

Optimizing LED Garland Length and Transistor Selection

The circuit specifies BD139 transistors with a maximum current rating of 1.5 A, theoretically allowing a 7.5 m strip. However, it’s advisable to limit the length to around 5 m in practice. To handle higher currents, replacing the BD139 with a TIP122 transistor (capable of 5 A) is recommended. Enabling control of LED garlands up to 20 m. In such cases, a power supply rated at least 12 A at 12 V is necessary. When using the TIP122, there’s no need to modify the printed circuit board; the transistor can be mounted in reverse with the heatsink tab facing outward, allowing placement on a common heatsink next to the PCB. It’s crucial to verify the correct labeling of R, G, and B LEDs on the garland before connecting it to the PCB. The source code and hex code for the program are available for download on the Elektor website [2].

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