RGB Strip (Dumb) markings

[ԆцряєсϮ]

Heres a trap for young players....
I just cut up a heap of Ray's RGB strip to start building some elements and noticed that the existing wire tags on each end where wired Frak to Bunt according to the markings on the actual strip. The markings were +12v, G, R, B but the wires attached were Black (+12v), Blue, Red, Green.
It appears the Blue and green channels are marked incorrectly on the strip itself. ???
Shows how important it is to test these things prior to doing any wiring.
Luckily I did otherwise the 21 sections I just soldered tails and plugs to would have been wrong

 

[Superman]

Very true that one. I scratched my head over this one as well last year. It is due to different suppliers of the 5050 LED'S on the board. sometimes the markings are correct on some strips.some times the green and blue are swaped. I usually have a quick look at what colour wire is going to what solder tab then check it.

 

[AussiePhil]

I never ever trust the wire colours these days.... always check by powering up.

as an FYI, there are two common pinouts for 5050 RGB Leds one is RGB and the other is GRB from memory, this may be the reason we see flexible strips that are different.

Phil

 

[fasteddy]

I never trust the colour of the wires and i never trust the markings. I had some strip last year that was marked +12v, DI, CI, GND, with +12v, DO, CO, GND. Now one would assume that DI and CI are for data in and clock in and for DO and CO you would expect to be outputs.
Well this was not the case as it was incorrectly marked and the output was in fact the input.

So with most standard 30LED/m 12v pixel strip i use the LED orientation as my guidence as it is LED, IC, LED, LED.

So as always dont trust wire colours or some markings always check the lighting physically just in case