It’s not obviously clear to me how I can use PB to control custom/non strip projects…but I have an entire toolbox of the buggers, so I really want to find a way.
From searching the forums, it sounds like I need some kind of intermediary controller such as: https://www.tindie.com/products/ericgu/ws2811-ws2812-extender/
Is this the best product for this job?
Do I need one per LED? If not, what is the ratio of chip to LED I can use?
Yes you need something like that. Those usually power multiple LEDs, up to a power limit. You’d need to calculate that based on the power used for a given length of non-addressable LEDs.
Ok so they power n number of LEDs…but for the LEDs they drive, are each treated as individual addressable pixels? I was worried it was the equivalent of the chip between every LED on a strip…
No, the entire nonadrressable strip acts as one “pixel.” That is, they all display the same color.
Non addressable led strips just aren’t wired for individual control.
Sorry @wizard I think I phrased that poorly.
Let me try again.
I have lots of the sorta ‘bulb’ LEDs attached (many without pins that look like an exrta terrestrial flesh-machine hybrid - IE NEVER used). Both RGB and mono LEDs.
I have some projects in mind where a strip is not ideal - single LEDs are more appropriate - even due to their physical ‘height’ in some cases compared to a strip.
I want to understand how I could ‘address’ one or more of these, treating them as separate ‘pixels’ as we do with PB an properly addressable strips.
The chip I linked…can it only address one ‘pixel’, where I could hook 50 LEDs up to a chip that could power 50 (as per your power ceiling advice earlier), where all 50 would be seen as pixel 1, as far as pixelblaze can see? Therefore I’d need one of these for every little ‘bulb’ I wanna use?
Or can such chips+PB address each ‘bulb’ as a ‘pixel’, the same way that we can do with a properly addressable strip+PB…up to the ceiling of bulbs/pixels that they can power?
Oh and a slightly different one @wizard - I thought this justified it’s own separate reply, but not its own post.
I have a lot of these teeny two-pin bulbs that have some form of internal chip that cycles them on a pretty garish cycle. I have read on Reddit that they can be addressed by 'pulsing the voltage to the ground very (ms-level) rapidly…I don’t know how to even test this on Arduino or whatever, so I am not sure if this is even true, but assuming it could be, is this something PB could handle (any differently than whatever asnwer you have for my last Qs. 
https://www.reddit.com/r/led/comments/lskcum/is_there_a_way_to_control_the_color_of_a_2_pin/
Oh, you can turn those discrete LEDs into addressables by adding a ws2811 driver chip. I sell breakouts for those.
You don’t need the larger board for handling a lot of power. Only for LEDs strips.
I don’t know about controlling the 2 pin self controlled rgb LEDs. Maybe someone else has hacked these for use with Pixelblaze.
As always, you are a rockstar.
Forget about the 2pins, they are silly and cost me 60c from china when I was drunk once…let’s focus on the normal LEDS…
So I am pretty sure the link you sent has told me that these chips are 1:1 with ‘pixels’? Wow - that’s an expensive homebrew replacement for a cheap strip, if so!
Is there no chip/unit around (or is it even conceptually impossible?) that can more or less mimic an addressable strip on individual LEDs via said chip/unit?
Oh and WRT you selling them @wizard , and I’d love to support you…down here in aus, both price and currency make it a hard sell…and all the PBs I have ordered have arrived at my door within 2 days, often 1…no way I can get that from the US…
I have bought all my PB stuff via Mouser AU… (as far as I can recall…definitely them but maybe other big, faceless, multinational sellers, too…)
Yes, converting LEDs is a pain and probably more expensive than buying new addressable LEDs no matter how you go about it. You can get the bare ws2811 chips for less.
Order from mouser is totally fine! I wholesale to them. If that’s easier for you, awesome.
They marked the sensor board as “not recommended for new designs” then didn’t order any more when they ran out. No idea why.
It sounds like I had be better off slicing up and soldering an existing strip. Thanks mate.
Ooooh! Something like this would work wouldn’t it?
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