After I cut the wires of this LED board, I needed an easy way to connect it to a power supply. I had a little screw-terminal and a 5.5mm barrel jack connector. I also had a scrap of perf board that was just the right size. I connected them all together and now I can easily connect a standard 12v AC adapter.

With the power connected, I poked around the board with my multimeter, testing voltages. Then I tried touching a jumper wire to the board in a few places to see if I could at least make the LEDs light up steady, but I didn't have much luck. When the LEDs did come on, they were very dim and they would flicker quickly.

I unplugged the wire and plugged it back in, and suddenly the light came on again, but it only ran the light pattern once. If I unplugged the wire a few times and reconnected the power quickly, I could occasionally get the lights to flash, but it always stopped after one loop. I decided to build a more reliable circuit to replace this one.