So a goal of ours is to at least get some turning and some oo’s and ahh’s as the flashiest rookie team out there. Our plan was LED strips. We have the electrical and programming capabilities but don’t know where the best deals are on LED strips.
This thread can serve the purpose for others finding some quality and cheap LED’s for others as well. Any suggestions at any price are welcome, we just need some different places to buy from for a proper comparison.
Thanks in advance!
-Rookie Team 6398
We got ours from SuperBrightLEDS.com for 11.95 per strand.
NFLS-G30X3-WHT-LC2: 50cm[19.7in] Green with White PCB and LC2 Connector
Depends on how much you want and what you want to do with them. They’ll be cheaper if you’re just looking for a single strip of color vs one where you can control the color of each light individually (rgb addressable).
We’re using iPixel APA102C from SparkFun this year:
I’ve heard good things about Adafruit’s NeoPixel line but haven’t used them. Their pricing is comparable to the above SparkFun link but a different size LED.
We used these a couple years ago when they were on sale. I think we paid $65 for the whole 5m strip but that’s absurdly low. We had a lot of problems with them breaking:
https://www.amazon.com/NEWSTYLE-Programmable-Individually-Addressable-Waterproof/dp/B00MHUK83K
If you put LEDs on your robot, I strongly advise sticking them onto something rigid and easily detachable for maintanance. These lights are like perforated paper. If they flex alot, they’ll develop fissures.
Been using adafruit’s dotstars with much success for two years.