A remarkable lighting system is illustrated in this project wherein the system is created to be controlled by the color displayed on the TV or with the use of a Blackberry. It shows how LED light bars were built, mounted, and controlled to provide full color ambient room lighting and video effects with ambilight style as shown in the image of a room below.

Shown in the video below is the flickering of the LEDs although it is not as noticeable as it is in the video because of the PWM of the lights being off from the camera rate. The various RGB LED displays through the room are controlled using the LED-Wiz controller. Some decent software for doing animations and testing are included in the LED-Wiz controller like the Luminaudio, LedBlinky, and LED-Wiz.

This RGB LED controller is connected to the PC which lets the user to either change the color by hand or the color changes to music. The main color of the screen is denoted by the LEDs as shown in the next image.

The materials needed to build this light system include the LED-Wiz controller that is capable of driving 32 channels at 500mA since each LED requires 3 channels at 20mA.the RGB LEDs are designed in 10 bars of 19 LEDs. The ribbon cable comes with a 20-wire width which is torn into 4 wire strips similar to ATA33 cables and floppy drive type of cable. Since the ambilight effects will only work with video being played from the computer, a computer is a must. It is not possible to have the effects from another source unless a video capture card to watch TV is used. Another image of using the ambient color lighting bars is shwn in the below image.

As shown in the photo below, a large piece of stripboard was cut into pieces measuring 4×57. The LEDs were inserted to the stripboard while distinguishing the anode as the longest leg. To avoid being flushed with the board, the spacing between the holes in the stripboard does not match the spacing on the LEDs. The next images show how the LEDs were soldered onto the board as well as the resistors.

A piece of vinyl sliding shaped like a U is used to mount the bars. A strip of scotch mounting tape was laid down inside it and pressed the board in, then in between the plastic, the cable was tucked in. the mounting tape is also used to mount the entire things on the wall. The image below shows the controller as it was wired up where the cathodes go to the different ports and the common anode goes to the 5V IN. the power supply for the PC was used to run the power for the controller. The controller is not capable of powering off USB since the system requires 12A and the PC power supply is rated 20A on the 5V line.