For decorating outdoor spaces, these TM1814-equipped Cafe / Patio Light Bulb Strands each have 20 bulbs with a triple RGBW LED inside. They’re just like the café lights you see folks string up to add some ambience, but you can control them as RGBW LEDs to set any rainbow or warm-white color you want, and each one is individually addressable as well.
To control them you’ll need two things: a 12V power supply and a TM1814 controller. Unlike many NeoPixels we stock, these lamps use 12VDC power because there’s three LEDs in series and over the long wires a 5V power supply would dip too much. Each bulb draws 60mA maximum with all the LEDs on bright white, so make sure you have a 12V 1A or 12V 5A power supply. If you have a USB Type C PD supply that can provide 12V, you could also use a 12V PD Cable or 12V PD power tip to power them that way.
Secondly, you’ll need a TM1814 driver, which is not the same as NeoPixel/WS2812! That’s because there’s a 4th channel for RGBW and they couldn’t use classic WS2811 chips. Upshot is, you’ll need something that can do TM1814 which has an inverted signal from classic NeoPixels and requires constant data refresh. Many drivers like WLED do support TM1814 but you may need a logic inverter, and if it isn’t built into your driver, pick up a separate Adafruit Pixel Shifter which has an inverted output!
As a warning, TM1814 is much more annoying than NeoPixels, for the above reasons plus it will flash solid colors if no signal is provided. So if you don’t need that fourth White channel, we recommend you just get the RGB NeoPixel version.
Each strand comes with 20 bulbs, separated by 4″, with little hooks that can be used to attach them to a wire or fence. There’s ‘weatherproof’ 3-pin DC connectors on both ends, so you can easily connect them up for longer runs if necessary (you’ll want to cap the ends with some hot glue or plastic wrap).
Please note: These are very bulky compared to their weight, and so shipping costs will be dimension-based not weight-based.
The strand also comes with one ‘pigtail’ for the input side. The BROWN wire is +12V, the WHITE wire is data, and the BLUE wire is ground.
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