Adding more AURA RGB headers

[CX_gamer]

Hi,

for my build with the ROG Zenith Extreme, 2 AURA RGB headers are not enough. Therefore I have decided to use the addressable RGB header as a means to control several of my RGB components: a future EKWB monoblock, GPU waterblock, reservoir (separate 5mm LED's) and a lot of fans separately. This is possible by using WS2811 IC's to decode the values of each individual LED into separate RGB (or GRB for AURA Sync). This can easily be done by chaining these IC's, each one outputting 3 PWM signals. The fourth pin -the 12V connector- will need to be powered separately.

The IC's are pretty cheap, but if I were to print a PCB, it would become quite costly. So if anyone is interested in a PCB of this, let me know and we'll drive the cost down a bit. For the while being, I'll be wiring this on a prototype board.

The only question I still have is where to find female AURA RGB headers? The ones that come on a motherboard I mean. This would be a cleaner solution than alternatives where I would need to cut and strip wires coming from the RGB components.

Thank you in advance,

CX

[CX_gamer]

Added more components to the board. Right now I'm wondering what value a certain resistor should be so I asked it on SO.

Here's the progress. I'm aware it looks very ugly, but it measures through so that's the most important.

[CX_gamer]

So I soldered the final components:



It was definitely an ugly job, stuff isn't very straight and all, but it measures through. Used some hot glue so that the wires wouldn't bend to prevent metal fatigue. Alright time to test this thing! First I had powered it on without anything. Since I didn't smell any burning, I went on and hooked up the components to it, along with the data lines and the power.



The connectors were slightly too bulky, so I ended up shaving a bit off. So I turned it on and it worked! Every component is individually lighting up in all of the colors! There was so much that could go wrong, but I punched Murpy right in his face. But then I noticed something was off and went to display only the color red:



Yeah red is green. Looking up the spec confirms my suspicion: ASUS uses GRB and I had built GBR. Slightly upset by this since honestly RGB is a settled standard. This is an issue in the board which I need to correct, and I don't feel like spending the time to solder another one. So I will just swap the wires of the components themselves.

My next step is figuring out how to address them. I'll ask if the SDK team is still working on it, since currently these are not programmable yet. I may end up with an Arduino in my case just for this.

UPDATE: So turns out that the signal for an addressable LED (WS2811B) differs from the IC (WS2811). The signal coming to the IC is RGB, but the WS2811B uses GRB, which is the one coming out of the motherboard. It appears I was wrong in stating RGB was a settled standard. So now that I understand the problem, I'm using twisting and shrink wire to fix it. This also means that I dimmed my green signal instead of the red one, but it seems no problem as the colors are still very vibrant.

I got very lucky that the WS2811 even works with a WS2811B signal.

[CX_gamer]

I updated the board, fixing the previously mentioned problems and also with better documentation on how to create it: https://github.com/CXgamer/Aura-sync-splitter

Also I've tried to contact ASUS on fixing their SDK through various means and seems like there won't ever be a new release unless ASUS decides to suddenly make RGB RAM or addressable RGB strips. There has been work done on reverse engineering the protocol, but the conclusion may be that it requires new firmware.

Unfortunately, I think I'll just use an Arduino for my board and leave the LED's of my high-end motherboard and RAM disabled. It's not useful to downgrade my application to 32 bits for just the few RGB leds of the motherboard itself. Screw the SDK, we will see who will be the one who is outshined :/.