Using capacitors for smoothing for circuit utilizing LPD8806 LED Strips

Thread Starter

Spitwod

Joined Aug 19, 2014
4
What I am building is an Ambilight system, basically LED's that react to the images on your TV. I am having some difficulty with the wiring. I am trying to consolidate the components to a circuit board. I have 2 prototypes, simple and advanced. Both of which i attached the caps differently.
What is the right way? Simple proto I have the capacitor going across the + and - The advanced proto I have the capacitor only on the + but its not working right. The resistor and the LED are there to indicate power coming out of the caps. The will light up and then go dim, the board is powered by 5v 10a AC.
Simple
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0n8ef39j9uhff2m/IMG_20140819_123747.jpg
Advanced
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c539t5b0rwjjfu3/IMG_20140819_123814.jpg
Overall
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v2ssjjgt9wffutz/IMG_20140819_131708.jpg

Please ask questions, I tried to think of the relevant information.
Thanks in advance
-Erik
 

Thread Starter

Spitwod

Joined Aug 19, 2014
4
those jumpers are the power for the LED strips. Because of the # of LED's there needs to be a secondary power injection. So J2 powers half the strip and J3 powers the other half. The advanced picture does not have the jumpers, the wires were soldered right on board. The pins on the right are to interface with the Raspberry Pi GPIO as a shield for the 3rd proto. The power source I just realized might be the issue? Do I even need to use capacitors?
 
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Thread Starter

Spitwod

Joined Aug 19, 2014
4
If the leds shown on your schematic are just on/off indicators, why is there a capacitor in series with them?
I am using the capacitors to prevent power spikes to the LPD8806 RGB strips i have about 4 meters split to J2 and J3. The 2 red LED's were put there to indicate power coming out out the capacitors only, but that's where the red LED terminate, they do not connect to J2 or J3.
 
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