Connecting led strips to "dance" to music

[hey101]

I bought 5 30cm L.E.D strips. They are all different colors. They are 12v. The person I bought them from did not mention what the power or current is, but after doing research i found them to be 0.96w and 0.08A. There are 15 leds on each strip. What I want to do is have them connected to a board where I have a line in jack on it and the lights dance to the music. I want it to be powered by a wall adapter. I have no idea where to begin to even make any of that or what supplies i will need. If what I am looking for already exists and I can buy one, I don't mind, but I enjoy making things myself. For the power supply I was thinking of having it like a dc style jack so I can unplug it and possibly in the future power it through my car 12v adapter.

I also wanted to look at not only dancing to music but have different options like, all on, chase, or slowly fade from one to another. I have no idea how complex that makes it or the difficulty in making any of that.

Any help is appreciated in what I will need to accomplish all of this. Thanks in advance!

 

[audioguru]

We "guess" the LED strips have built-in current-limiting resistors so they work if the "12V" is as high as 14.4V in a car.

It is easy to light the LEDs all on.

There is a fairly complicated circuit to make LEDs dance to music.

There is a fairly complicated circuit to chase LEDs but not your LED strips that have all the LEDs connected together.

Many additional resistors and capacitors can fade all the LEDs in the LED strips at the same time.

 

[hey101]

On the strip itself, it looks like it has resistors every two leds. This is the item that I bought: **broken link removed**
I have 5 of them, different colors.

As to the chase, Im meaning it like, light strip one, then two, then 3, and so on in rapid succession.

For the fading, It would be #1 lights for a couple seconds and then fades to #2 and so on.

Where can I get diagrams or such for all of those circuits or a way to combine all of them with a switch to choose between?

 

[audioguru]

An LED chaser circuit usually uses an oscillator driving a CD4017 IC that has 10 outputs. the number of outputs is easily reduced. You need to add transistors to the outputs so that your LEDs receive enough current.

An LED fader has an input resistor, a capacitor to ground then the output transistor, for each output.

Look in Google for the circuits.

 

[hey101]

Would this work for the "dancing" leds?
**broken link removed**

Chaser:
http://electroschematics.com/6170/led-chaser/


Random Flashing:
**broken link removed**

I can't find one for fading slowly and randomly from led strip to led strip.
Also how could I combine these different circuits to where I have a sliding switch to toggle which one is active?

 

[audioguru]

The first circuit does not "dance" the LEDs. Instead it sequences them when it hears any sound.
It has a microphone input, not line level and it drives two or three LEDs in series per output with its constant current source, it will not drive your LED strips unless it is modified.

The Chaser circuit is a standard circuit. It does not have output transistors so your LED strips will be very dim.

The "random flasher" is not random. It has a certain sequence and each step occurs after the same amount of time.
Again it does not have output transistors so your LED strips will be very dim.

As I said before, a series resistor then a capacitor to ground driving a transistor makes its output fade up and down.

Since you have 5 outputs and 3 or 4 functions then you need a huge custom-made switch with many contacts.

 

[hey101]

I keep looking around on google, but I honestly am not sure what to search for. I find lots of similar music ones that work off of a microphone. The ones that I find that have a line in, cause all of the led lights to flash at once to the music. I want each one to flash individually depending upon the frequency or something.

How could I add output transistors to the circuit to make it work?

How could I make it random then, because what I tend to find are mostly 555 timers that end up repeating and not really being very random. The most random circuits are using a PIC but I do not have a programmer that I can use for those. I do not mind using the 555 timer as long as I can make the pattern decently long before it repeats.

I found this led chaser circuit, but I don't know if any of those could handle 12v going through them to power the led strip. https://www.free-electronic-circuits.com/circuits/led-chaser.html

 

[audioguru]

How can each of your LEDs flash individually to the frequencies of music when they are all connected together in a strip of LEDs?
Instead you can make a circuit that flashes each strip of LEDs to frequencies of music.
You need to learn about electronics to modify the circuits you found so they work with your strips of LEDs.

It is difficult to design a circuit that flashes LEDs randomly.

The new circuit you found drives a single LED for each output. It does not have a transistor at each output for boosting the current so your LED strips (that have 15 LEDs at each output) will look very dim.

 

[hey101]

Sorry, I do mean the strip and not the individual LEDs.
I would absolutely love to learn about electronics and I do plan to while I am in college. This is probably a very advanced way of starting off but this is one of my many projects that I will probably need lots of help on.

If they can't be truly random, then what would be a method for making them flash in some type of long pattern?
Can you provide any diagrams for circuits that accomplish any of this? I can usually make it from a diagram.