Ambilight Without Arduino for Non Addressable RGB Leds

If u Don't know What Ambilight is you must check youtube videos on Philips Ambilight

Now a days there's many way to do a replica or even a better looking reflections ..

the easiest way to do such a thing is with a cheap RGB led that isn't digital .. all the led will glow the same color ..

and without any sort of micro controllers or any embedded Systems such as Arduino, pic, and Raspberry PI

now you might think it won't be that good .. check my results ..

The main things you will need is :

.1 Breadboard, some wires, wire stripper and cutter, some soldering skills if your led is not already soldered

.2 12v RGB led with Common Anode [+], and 3 grounds for each color, thats 4 pins

.3 Your PC, with DVI-I[contains Analog pins], or the standered VGA

.4 A graphic card that supports multiscreen [atleast 2 screens, your main screen, and the virtual screen coloring the leds]

.5 NPN Transistors x3, i used bd543c because i have a very long led that demands much power.

.6 Optocoupler x3, also named Optoisolator, i used tlp521-4, it contains 4 photogates we will only use 3 of them.

.7 12v+ from your PC power supply [usually yellow wires]

.8 12v- [Black wires]

.9 5v+ also from the Power Supply [red wires]

Note: i didn't use any resistors because i didn't have any .. and im very bad at calculations .. :)

but it might heart something on your pc .. idk .. used this method for a while now and everything is still on :)

let's head to the dirty work ..

first let's connect the optocoupler on the breadboard, check the datasheet for directions

connect the green or red or blue from your GPU port [DVI-I or VGA] to the Anode of the photogate.

the ground of the photogate must be connected to the ground of the same port ..

now apply 5v+ to the collector..

the emitter of the optocoupler gets connected to the base of the transistor ..

the collector of the 1st transistor get's 12V- [ground], and it's emitter goes to the led cathode color

apply 12v+ to your led common anode

apply the same rules for the rest of the colors ..

Check out the diagram diagram ..

Note: The Optocoupler must be placed in the middle of the breadboard .. because that separates the photogate pins from the collector and emitter ..

now we need to tell out os that there's another screen .. here's how to do it on windows 8.1:

press the windows button[keep holding it] + P [twice]

thats all :D

sometimes when you restart your pc it might get back to the original screen only .. do that again and you are on ..

here ar my results using about 5m of cheap rgb leds i bought a while back .. for more please just ask in the comments :)