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Make Pacific RGB Fittings compatible with Asus Aura (professional electrician needed)


Dazley

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I've recently ordered those Pacific RGB fittings from Thermaltake and i've inspected their structure. Apparently it's just BRG+... no fancy digital control, so making them compatible with Asus Aura should be easy, right?

Well, that's why i'm making this post, because i'm not 100% sure how to make this. Asus Aura works with BRG+12V while the Fittings are powered with BRG+5V.... So theoretically i should be able to make one tiny adapter cable from PWM to RGB LED connector with a resistor on the + line, right?

The thing is, since we get the option to daisychain them, i want to daisychain 4 fittings to one connector and i'm not exactly sure about the maths for the resistor. Can someone with proper knowledge of electronics help me out, please?

From what i can see the LEDs are connected in parallel on one of those ring pcbs with each color channel for each led having a 330 Ohm resistor. I assume the LEDs are SMD 1616 RGB LEDs with a 25mA max on each color channel? So that roughly accounts for a 5V input. The controller box is hooked up to the 5V line of the molex connector, so i'm pretty sure it's BRG5V

Now to my problem.... how do i make the adapter cable if i want to daisychain four of those fittings to one BRG12V connector?

DSC_0130.thumb.JPG.4406c95a45bea37d5b30a73759bb6aff.JPGDSC_0128.thumb.JPG.b3c56364016d044176ec08099fc68bbb.JPGDSC_0139.JPG.6d404c508137d6fe9693cebdb670763a.JPG

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

I did the math, you need a 280 ohm resistor to make it work in line. However it needs to dissipate more wattage than most single resistors will. I chained 3 100 ohm 1/4 watt dissipation resistors in series in the 12V supply line. All test fine on the 12V supply from the PSU, haven't used the header yet as I'm still building but I believe it should be fine. 

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Not exactly. Each wire has 6x 330 Ohm resistors in parallel which is equivalent to 55 Ohm if you want to add a resistor in series before all of them. According to my calculation, you just need a 77 Ohm resistor on 12 V wire.

After testing, I personally did put an 100 Ohm resistor on the 12 V wire just so the the voltage after the resistor is about 4.8 V (measured using multi-meter). I find 100 Ohm is a safe value if you want to put just one fitting on the line.

If you are to add more (using the Y connector with it) that value can be decreased even more ( it technically parallel wiring). But I would recommend just to 100 Ohm to get good balance and brightness. Anything more than 100 Ohm with look dim if you add more fitting on one chain.

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/12/2017 at 1:01 PM, TanoSkywalker said:

Not exactly. Each wire has 6x 330 Ohm resistors in parallel which is equivalent to 55 Ohm if you want to add a resistor in series before all of them. According to my calculation, you just need a 77 Ohm resistor on 12 V wire.

After testing, I personally did put an 100 Ohm resistor on the 12 V wire just so the the voltage after the resistor is about 4.8 V (measured using multi-meter). I find 100 Ohm is a safe value if you want to put just one fitting on the line.

If you are to add more (using the Y connector with it) that value can be decreased even more ( it technically parallel wiring). But I would recommend just to 100 Ohm to get good balance and brightness. Anything more than 100 Ohm with look dim if you add more fitting on one chain.

Hey could you please elaborate on the process you used to do this. I'm pretty new to wiring so a parts list/ photo of the adapter or diagram would be really helpful also is the 12v wire the first pin on the left of the 4 pin header? 

Edit: So what I'm thinking is buy wires male and female connectors and a 100 omh resistor and make an extension cable like this. Would this work?

   

diagram rgb fitting.png

Edited by ajem
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  • 2 months later...

For Motherboards with the Asus RGB addressable header, which uses +5V, could that header be used and just split the fitting off of there? 

 

 

 

Nevermind...answered my own question...no it cannot

Edited by AviatorDuck
Answered my own question....
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi!
I just wanted to share my personal experience to help others in need with this matter (if any XD).

The easiest solution that came to my mind to solve this issue was to buy a voltage regulator. 

You just have to put it between the +12V of the RGB non-addressable header on the mobo and the +5 of the LEDs and then connect to the ground each colour accordingly.

Using the original controller that came in the box with the fittings, for the colour white at full brightness I measured 0.85A at 5V, hence 4.25W, which is a lot of heat for a single resistor, so I thought it would be better to go for a voltage regulator.

I used a standard LM7805, and the measurements were almost identical to the original controller. 

https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Components/LM7805.pdf

For the test I used a 12V 2A power adapter I had home to avoid testing directly on the mobo controller.

If you're interested I'll test post the measurements I'll make once installed directly on the mobo.

To sink the heat produced by the voltage reduction ((12-5)V*0,85A=5,95W) I built a very simple (yet not so elegant XD) heatsink, binding a piece of aluminum and #### it on the back of the voltage regulator and putting some thermal compound in between. Even after leaving everything on for an hour the vr wouldn't burn my fingers, and who has been using them in the past knows how much they're able to heat up...

This is the result:

1.thumb.jpeg.0c880ac857d466b5634d2377f90e8472.jpeg

 

And very easy schematics ( simplified all LEDs into one pth for each colour):

2.thumb.png.33d5b540e1863b1fb5abac5bee3a3831.png

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Did you know to make the brightness levels 100% even and accurate to obtain proper rgb light  levels you need a special light measuring tool also worth noting that different  coloured LEDs need a different value resistor, if you are not too bothered about absolute accuracy, the only thing you need t do is change the onboard surface mount resistor inside the ring light itself,

i always use a 470 Ohm for RED and 330Ohm for green and 330 Ohm for blue, red needs a higher resistor as they operate at 2.2v max, where as green and blue around 3v

daisy chaining at least 6 of these ring lights can easily be done from a single 12 molex plug all connected in parallel its all down to current draw not voltage.

Or you could easily wire them all in parallel from a 5v molex without any modification

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  • 3 months later...

Hi all!

 

So I'm super new to wiring, electronics. Despite that, I really want to get this setup right, so I'm ready to learn everything I need to get there. I've gone through custom water loops, custom cable sleeving, etc, and I'm at my last impasse with these RGB fittings. I've given in as to two separate RGB control forms, with corsair controlling the fans and RGB strips (through their superior Cue software), while the mobo controls the cpu block, gpu block, res, and its own lights (through Gigabyte's poor software). I can't handle 3 different modes for RGB, so this thread is a godsend.

 

That is...if I can figure out how to do all of this. I'm doing 2 packs of RGB fittings for a total of 12, and I've already got the CPU LED header taken, and a res with ALED taking up a digital header (which I am also working on syncing), and an alt res with standard +12V GRB (I think).

 

With 12 fittings, what is the best solution to get them running off the mobo? Is it even possible with only 2 LED headers? My mobo has 1 CPU +12V GRB, 2 +12V GRBW, and 2 +12V/5V digital LED headers. (Gaming 7 x470)

 

Can you daisy chain 6 fittings to one header? Is a resistor/regulator still needed? If a regulator is needed with a heatsink, can it operate for full 24hr cycles safely? 

 

How would I go about testing these things?

 

Thanks for any help! This thread has been super helpful already.

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  • 3 months later...

Wow, I haven't looked in here for very long.

I found a VERY easy solution that didn't require much electrical understanding at all.

Just get a RGB Amp for very low money. All you need to do is feed it with 5V from the PSU and the signal from the RGB header from the mainboard (it doesn't matter if it's 12V), the AMP provides the fittings with 5V and uses the RGB signal from the header and you can chain as many as you desire since those things can deal with plenty ampere, enough to chain every fitting in your system from one RGB header.

RGB-AMP-4X4.jpg

It says 12-24V DC, but it also works with 5V Power input and it outputs 5V just fine.

Also you can ignore the "RGB" labeling, you can put the rgb leads any way you want, it's important that the output and input leads match (instead of RGB they could have been labled 1,2,3, if you get what I mean?), because the headers on the mainboards are usually VGRB, which is also the same for the fittings, so you don't need to twist the wires to match the labeling on the amp, only the V must go according to the labeling.

The thing is, Tt released a sync controller for their smart LED devices and Asus also released their AURA Terminal for AURA control over USB and if I'm not mistaking, Tt made new fittings of the Plus series with smart LEDs aswell, that and lack of funds forced me to abandon this project.

But I hope I could help some of you out with this easy solution. (I hope it's a good solutions and not a firehazard, tho. Can electricians confirm it's a good idea?)

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