Arduino

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So who here knows how to work this magic?

[Ruffdaddy]

Whatre you trying to do?

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Well, I want to basically have a light show on my quad copter that is controlled by an extra channel on my radio. I found this.......

http://www.adafruit.com/products/1455?gclid=COzukte3mMgCFY-FaQodCKUEWw

And I found these......

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=361355816679&alt=web

I think they work together but have zero clue what to do

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Nobody

[Mach1]

solider it together, get the arduino code editor and write a program to control the lights.
I bet you can control each led array with a single pwm output from the Arduino, this gives you 6 pwm outputs so you can control 6 of those led arrays.

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardNano

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How do I know wtf works with what though?

[abecx]

You mean which pin in / pin out you need to use? Can you give any more detail?

That board you link is more or less a fancy relay, its not intended to run those lights by itself, it needs brains to power it.

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This is exactly what I need to know. What else would I need? Is there an AIO solution? I would just like to be able to turn the lights on and off and maybe program them to do some patterns.

Keeping everything as small and light as possible is important as well. I have on board power available in 25v and 12v

[abecx]

What make/model is your quad copter? I am sure there is probably a kit tailored made for this.

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There isn't, it's a home brew setup. I picked the piece parts out and assembled everything to my liking. I'm not inept when it comes to stuff like this but in this specific instance I have zero experience with the subject matter. I found these led strings called ws2812b, I think I linked some earlier. They apparently come with drivers installed in them already. I just don't have a clue how to tell them what to do.

[abecx]

well, basically on the arduino or any other type of device ( raspberry pi for example, beagle boards etc ) you will have GPIO ports on it, what you do is plug pins in from that to the logic board and then your lights plug into the logic board. Your arduino/pi unit then can send signals to the chip which will adjust the resistance which controls which light color turns on.

Here is a very crude example of what you would be doing. The arduino/pi is the human usable interface that you can us to talk to the chip that the lights plug up to. That chip acts as that pinout board in the video controlling resistances to each led which should change the colors. Your interface would be pretty simple most likely consisting of "MAKE LIGHT BLUE" kind of commands as the drivers facilitate the translation to the chip. This is all supposition, it might work differently but the concepts are about the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmbjspoF4kI

[Ruffdaddy]

So what you bought is a board that works with the arduino, but you still need the arduino to control the lights. The arduino is a microcontroller board that is powered by 9v batteries or a USB.

The link to adafruit that you provided details how it should all be hooked up for the arduino to control the lights, and it probably has some example code. Arduino programming is super easy and there are blocks of code for nearly any shield out there.

If you actually want to control it with your radio, you will need a separate radio control shield or components that pick up the signal from the receiver. In my arduino kit i got a potentiometer to play with leds, and it also allows you to run RGB leds with the arduino controller alone.

[Gasser64]

If you woulda said Raspberry Pi I coulda helped ya. Here's this:

[TeeShock]

Regular Arduinos have a built in voltage regulator. Just run it off of the onboard 12V. It shouldn't be a big deal as long as your load isn't huge.

Grab some mini digital led's and I can try to help with your code. I have a hacked up code that runs led patterns off of an IR remote.

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I finally found something that will work and will let me program it to my liking. Its not as cool as the RGB led's or have near the programming capability as ardunio but its small, light weight, and I have already downloaded the software and written a program that I will load onto it when it gets here. Even has a preview of what the pattern will look like.