I finally got the whole rainbow to work! I ended up using an ATTINY85, as it had the perfect number of PWM pins for the application. I’m considering upgrading to an ESP later so I can control the thing over wifi like it was originally meant to be controlled.
Firstly, the wall wart itself is 12V and the LED’s will draw way too many amps to run the power through the attiny. My solution here was actually to rip the 5V regulator out of one of those cheap-o cigarette-outlet chargers that I found, broken, in my girlfriend’s car. The regulator, however worked fine. Thank you, charger, for donating your body to science.
Then I needed two more N-Channel power MOSFETS in order to safely drive the voltage on the G and B pins independently. These came from an old, broken macbook charger:
After that, I expertly drew a little schematic to work off of. Very professional stuff.
And finally, here is the completed breaboard and a gif of the operation. Success never felt so colorful. I’ll be excited to put this in my room when I switch houses in the fall!
