Ok guys. I think I got it working. I have the arduino and the led strip wired and they work. After a fair amount of frustration I was able to write a program that cross-fades between an array of colors. That's all good.
One minor issue though is if I use
analogWrite(pin, 0) it works great for the Green and Blue LED. They both turn off completely. When I use it on the Red LED though it stays on very dim. I assume this is because there is a tiny bit of current flowing still and the reds forward voltage is less than green and blue. Is this correct? If so what do I do to fix it?
I think I need to add a resistor to bring the forward voltage on red below the threshold. Would I need to increase the resistor value for the base resistor that's already there or do I need to add an emitter resistor into the circuit?
Thanks again for all your help guys! I'm almost there