How to control 12 LED strips individually

[Digit]

.. and preferably with a single controller ?!?

I want to control 12 LED strips, each about 1 meter long, white. And all those 12 LED strips need to be individually controlled, i.e. I want to be able to set the brightness of each one of them individually. And I want to do this with a single controller, not 3 or 4 RGB controllers.
(12 is the number of steps of a staircase we're going to renovate.. )

Does such a controller exist? Do you have one? Ever seen one?
Any ideas?

[raymonvdm]

Maybe you can check for a dot pixel led controller. This gives u the ability to control each led individually

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbdvrfwr6Sg

[Akatar]

of:
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/10402 ... X.html?s=p

[OWK]

Not an exact answer to your question, but maybe it helps:

http://stairlighting.org/category/autom ... -lighting/

And this guy developed a pcb to control strairs lights: http://youtu.be/PZVizaSaaK8
This Guy too: http://alan-parekh.vstore.ca/project-ki ... c-1_2.html

Is 12 strips not too much light if its dark? Looking to the videos on youtube two leds can be enough maybe?

Regards
OWK

[Digit]

OMG, I must 've been sleeping... but I woke up yesterday

It's soo easy, the costs are: EUR 9,00+(12*0,72) = EUR 17,64
And I already had it on stock @ home, go figure
I bought a JeeLabs Dimmer Plug 3 years ago but never used it and forgot that I had it. This Plug contains a PCA9635 16-channel PWM LED driver.
Suddenly I remembered it, quickly soldered a JeeNode, attached the Dimmer Plug to the JeeNode and now I see 4 LEDs running a demo sketch.
Add 12 * IRLZ 34 N Power MOSFETs and you're done!

Components:
- Dimmer Plug, http://jeelabs.com/products/dimmer-plug
- 12 * MOSFET, http://www.conrad.nl/ce/nl/product/162873/

The Dimmer Plug communicates over I2C, so any I2C capable device can control it.
I think I'm gonna enable I2C on one of my Raspberry's and control the 12 LED strips with that..

Thanks all, it was an inspiring journey through the world of LED controllers!

@OWK: that's why I also want to be able to dim them all