Honestly, I'm not fully sure where this question would fit best; in Windows, or in Development or somewhere else. Anyway, to my question!
Hello all! recently I bought a couple meters worth of RGB LED strings, more specifically, the 4-pin variants (12v, red, blue, green), AND NOT the strings with the WS2812 controller IC, and I have no clue how to control the LED's via software (Windows), or even how to hook it up to the PC.
Now that I've said all of that, back to my main question; how can I control a string of RGB LED's via software, and how would I even connect it to my motherboard, allowing for it to be controlled via software?
If you like DIY and programming you could do it with an Arduino that communicates with a custom application of some kind. But that would probably mean writing the whole thing from scratch.
I thought about that idea; connecting an Arduino via a USB header to control the RGB LED's, however, I cannot wrap my head around programming, so I wouldn't be able to program it myself. If the code already exists, I'd definitely do it, however, when I looked around, I didn't find anything related to what I want to do.
With a bit more digging around, I found a way to create a module to control the LED's physically (via potentiometers), however, still cannot find how to control them via software.
That is about half of the software you would need. You still need the client on the PC.
If you don't mind spending more money, you could hook the arduino up to a network. You would then have the Arduino host a very simple web page where you could change the value of the RGB strip (0-255 for each colour). However that is still a bit more complex and expensive for what you may want. Considering the Arduino is $20 and the networking modules can be $45 or higher. It is also limited as you won't get much control except those three values.
Unfortunately, that's all I can think of. There might be some obscure controller boards online somewhere, but the software for them may not exist at all.
NZXT makes this fancy box, but i'm not sure if the pinout is the same. It may expect the other variant. Its also rather expensive when all you want to do is control an LED strip.
I was planning on running the Arduino inside the computer, and not require an outside connection. I basically want the LED strips to be completely controlled be the PC, without external infrastructure.
Lol yeah, I also saw that, but am not willing to invest that much money into it.
The reason that I wanted to do this is to sell a PC that I built with RGB lighting, to make it look "prettier", making more people want to buy it. If I use some weird solution (ex: the cheap, Ebay IR Remotes), I feel like it'll be less cool, and less people may be intrigued by it.
I was wandering the same thing but if i can find an app or PC software to control each of my USB pins and set up a program to turn on positive power and red negative to have red led on only but i then need to create a line to make any LED’s color turn on at certain times i just don’t have an software to do so. any ideas? For free it should work just like a rgb controller but programmable.