led light strip wiring

hey all. i have a 1999 durango with a dei 553t hornet alarm/remote start. i had a guy custom make me a led light strip with about 10 small smd led's in it which are made to scan back and forth. he used its own board(something called arduino circuit?) in a small controller box which in return i have a knob to where i can adjust how fast it scans. ive tried hooking it up(splicing into the output wire frome the alarm brain,pos. and neg.) and didnt work. i was reading on here something about need a relay so i went out and bought one. now im trying to figure out what wire goes to where on everything. i basically want it to light up when i have the vehicle alarmed and off when not alarmed. ive seen the posts where the led's come on when the ignition is off and vice versa but wanna try it the other way with arm and disarm. can anyone help with any ideas?

The arduino is an microprocessor board that (usually?) runs off USB power or 5V. So I'd assume you simply provide 5V when required.... The customiser should have provided details.

thanx for the reply....he said it need atleast  9volts-12 volts.

and i forgot to add to the above post....when i put it on to a 9 volt battery(just pos. and neg.) it works just like its suppose to.

400 ohm resistor? Or better still a DC-DC converter.

ok well where would i place the resistor and what would it do? same as the dc-dc converter?

In line on the positive input.

i just hooked it up to the ignition(-) and the 12 volt constant(+) and it works great. still would like it to only come on when the alarm is armed cuz it keeps scanning until i put the key in and start or have it to the acc position, then it stops.

What output wire from the alarm are you using? You do NOT want to use a relay with this as it will drain your battery. If you can get it to work with a 9vdc battery by only hooking up the + and - you should be able to get it to work with the alarm by hooking the + to constant voltage and the - to the (-) when armed output (orange wire).Kevin Pierson

i did try the positive to constant at the ignition and the negative to the orange(alarms negative output when armed) but it wouldnt work. my alarm brain actually had no orange wire coming out so i just held it to the peg inside the connector that goes to the brain(i think its the 12 pin connector-white).  i read about the orange wire printed on the back of the alarm brain box.