I could not figure out how to add a photo to a comment, so I added a new post with a couple of photos to illustrate PWM. See the one on the right with dots - you can see how doing POV patterns would be messed up if you use less than 100% intensity; the color could also change no more frequently than those dots (and not even that fast without running into beat frequencies; that’s a different set of pics).
So PWM rate is a factor for some purposes.
You don’t need a fast shutter - it’s a slow shutter that reveals it best. (Although with a 1/500 or faster shutter you might see artifacts, like a set of equally dim pixels as seen by the eye, showing to the camera as some brighter than that and some fully off. My point and shoot camera doesn’t want to use such a fast shutter in the dark tho!)
Yeah, searching ‘tm1829’ does not bring up any vendor with just the ICs, neither on aliexpress nor alibaba. One vendors on alibaba had them, but no more. Guess the first batch ran dry and the manufacturer is now playing catch up. So for the immediate moment, @Daniel_Garcia , don’t rush to try and get code written (unless you find it’s similar to what you already have written.) They don’t seem to be mass produced to the point where vendors are selling just the ICs. (Or someone decides to stick it inside of a 5050.
I’m thinking I may just have to work with the 8806. We’ll see. I’m still working on physical dimensions right now. 48 5050s packed within a millimeter of each other is already about 33cm long. So I may have to switch to the smaller cousin, the 3528.
Yeah, I know how the PWM affects it. I did some fun shots not too long ago too, though I was shooting in pitch dark while moving the camera (or string) around. 1/6 to 1/4 of a second at f29. I could see the dots the faster I moved … The string was a WS2801 …