Addressable LED lights without Arduino

[ferrari77]

I am looking to purchase multicolor addressable LED lights, the type that can be controlled by an Arduino or similar board, however I would like to have the option to use the LED strip in one color without controlling it frmo a board.

I know that there are LED strips that plug directly into a power source and light up as one color but is there a way to have the option to either go directly into a power source or use an Arduino with the same strip?

I am thinking of a strip like this but with the option to be a single color
http://www.adafruit.com/products/306

I can clarify if needed
Thanks

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by ferrari77

I can clarify if needed

Could you explain what you want to accomplish? Why do your LED's need to be individually addressable?

[ferrari77]

Purely decoration purposes.
I have not decided if i want the strip a solid color such as all blue and power it without a board or if I want multicolor/changing colors/flashing that is controlled through a boardso I am asking if there is one strip that I can buy that has the option to do either.

[protoserge]

I think what you're asking for is more along the line of a regular RGB LED strip such as this one (also with remote for $3 more here). You can power each RGB LED color with an independent 0-4V signal, mixing the colors will result in a emitted color for the entire strip (cut to length). You could build a small power circuit and trigger power to the lights with a mosfet.

[efoote868]

Are you looking to have the LEDs change colors individually (such as 10 LEDs in your strip, 5 are blue and 5 are white simultaneously), or just the entire strip at a time (10 LEDs, all one color which can change)?

The way the product you linked works, you'll need the microcontroller regardless of what you want. However, there are other simpler products which will do the latter with basically a power supply.

[wt200999]

Originally Posted by stinglikeabee

I think what you're asking for is more along the line of a regular RGB LED strip such as this one (also with remote for $3 more here). You can power each RGB LED color with an independent 0-4V signal, mixing the colors will result in a emitted color for the entire strip (cut to length). You could build a small power circuit and trigger power to the lights with a mosfet.

This is what our team did using the controller provided (the $3 more). To take it a step further we hijacked the PWM lines in the controller itself and fed those straight to the cRIO digital I/O (set to PWM mode) which allowed us to control the color of the entire strip at run time without any extra processor board.