A few years ago, I replaced the fluorescent backlight in an old LCD monitor, with an RGB LED strip. I went as densely-packed as I could find - 144/m - and that turned out to be necessary. I ended up with an individually addressable strip, though I don't really need that, simply because it's all I could find in 7mm wide or less with that density. (the original tray for the fluorescent tubes is 7mm)
That dense packing is necessary because I tried dithering every other one off or 1 LSb (effectively half the density, or 72/m) to reduce the overall intensity even more in low ambient light, and that allowed me to see the individual diodes that were still on at the edges of the screen. So it does need to be 144/m or thereabout.
Now, one of the "pixels" has developed a problem of not passing the data through correctly to the rest of the string. So the rest of the string is WAY TOO BRIGHT and completely the wrong color, which washes out what the other 3/4 or so are still doing correctly. For example, dithering 1/2-LSb as above, red only, and alternating pixels for each refresh so I don't see the individual diodes, now results in a bright strobing blue!
So I need to replace them now. Still 144/m or so, in 7mm wide or less. And I think I need to have a "dumb" strip this time, that is all the same color with each component bussed directly to the outside. That'll allow me to go even dimmer still while keeping a similar max level, perhaps by making it physically non-linear, or by adding a master channel, or whatever. (or maybe 10-bit PWM is enough, compared to the 8-bit resolution that I have now?)
Anyway, in all of my searching so far, I've come across lots of strips that are *either* ~144/m *or* <=7mm wide, but rarely anything with both. And the few that are, are all individually addressed. Does anyone know of a "dumb bussed RGB strip" with that density and width?