Ultra High Density DotStar LED PCB Bar - 128 LEDs

SKU: ADA3776 Brand: Adafruit

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This product has been retired. It is no longer available, but this page has been kept for reference.

Look, just bolt this to your ceiling fan already - Adafruit know that's the first thing you thought of! OK, so you already know what DotStar LEDs are - those digitally controllable LEDs that have two data wires and higher refresh rates for than NeoPixels. You can control them with any microcontroller since the timing on the data lines isn't particular, and you can use an SPI peripheral to send data pretty fast. DotStars come in the classic 5050 (5mm x 5mm) size as well as an adorable 2020 (2mm x 2mm)

So what Adafruit have here is a special rigid PCB with 128 those tiny 2mm x 2mm LEDs on em, as close as possible. Adafruit already have flexible LEDs, but with the ultra-high density (240 LED/meter density) Adafruit have here, you have to go rigid. Also, instead of a plain FR4 PCB it has an aluminum backing for extra strength and heat dissipation. Note that the PCB is rigid but requires support so it doesn't droop and crack. It's not intended to be bent or curved at all, and if you do so you may crack the copper traces.

This rigid LED Bar is just under half a meter long (400mm, excluding connectors) with 128 addressable LEDs and looks fantastic as accent lighting, backlighting, edge lighting, etc! However, Adafruit must note these bars are not cheap and require some care to use. First, they must have mechanical support so they don't bend & crack. Second, you could turn on all the LEDs on at full brightness and draw about 6 Amps but you'll overheat and damage the LEDs. So instead, keep your brightness at 50% or don't light up too many LEDs. Keep the power usage at under 15W (3A @ 5V)

These bars come with a 4-pin JST SM connector on both ends (and an extra GND and 5V wire), but you can remove these easily with a soldering iron. For the power wires, you will probably want a 2.1mm DC jack to wire in, so you can connect one of Adafruit's 5V wall adapters to power it.

Adafruit has a tutorial showing wiring, power usage calculations, example code for usage, etc. Please check it out!

Technical Details

LED: APA102-220
Beam Angle: 120º
LED Quantity: 128
Operating Voltage: DC5V
Power (W): recommend no more than 15W ± 0.5W in order to avoid overheating
Control (IC): APA102 DotStar
Waterproof Rating: IP20 (e.g. not at all)
Luminance: R: 300-500mcd / G: 500-850mcd / B: 120-220mcd
Wavelength: R: 619-626nm / G: 520-535nm / B: 465-475mcd
Product Dimensions: 384.0mm x 10.0mm x 1.5mm / 15.1" x 0.4" x 0.1"
Product Weight: 21.4g / 0.8oz
Datasheet

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