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NeoPixel Stick - 8 x WS2812 5050 RGB LED
This is the NeoPixel Stick from Adafruit, a small chainable board with eight 5050 WS2812 RGB LEDs. The WS2812s are each addressable as the driver chip is located inside the LED. Each NeoPixel Stick has ~18mA constant current drive so the color will be very consistent even if the voltage varies, and requires 5V.
Every stick is equipped with a single data line with a very timing-specific protocol requiring a real-time microconroller with a 8MHz or faster processor such as an AVR, Arduino, PIC, mbed, etc. There are solder pads on the back for connecting wires or breadboard pins and two mounting holes for securing this board to many different surfaces.
NeoPixel Stick - 8 x WS2812 5050 RGB LED Product Help and Resources
WS2812 Breakout Hookup Guide
July 24, 2013
How to create a pixel string with the WS2812 and WS2812B addressable LEDs!
LED Cloud-Connected Cloud
February 22, 2016
Make an RGB colored cloud light! You can also control it from your phone, or hook up to the weather!
Core Skill: Soldering
This skill defines how difficult the soldering is on a particular product. It might be a couple simple solder joints, or require special reflow tools.
Skill Level: Competent - You will encounter surface mount components and basic SMD soldering techniques are required.
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Core Skill: Programming
If a board needs code or communicates somehow, you're going to need to know how to program or interface with it. The programming skill is all about communication and code.
Skill Level: Rookie - You will need a better fundamental understand of what code is, and how it works. You will be using beginner-level software and development tools like Arduino. You will be dealing directly with code, but numerous examples and libraries are available. Sensors or shields will communicate with serial or TTL.
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Core Skill: Electrical Prototyping
If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.
Skill Level: Rookie - You may be required to know a bit more about the component, such as orientation, or how to hook it up, in addition to power requirements. You will need to understand polarized components.
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Customer Reviews
4.8 out of 5
Based on 5 ratings:
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Be careful and don't hold heat too long!
The solder pads are not that well bonded to the pcb, use as low a heat as possible, when soldering, otherwise, an excellent product!
Nice RGB LED
I use it to get the Naza Fligthcontroller Status LED signal on different places on the Multicopter so i can allways se the status of my fligtcontroller,
Teaching tool
The NeoPixel stick was very useful teaching my college class on Microprocessors. It was a very visual way to shift/set/clear bits especially for those very new to the 'guts' of a microcomputer. Plus, they're just fun.
Colorful and
I really like working with these "smart" RGB LEDs (Adafruit NeoPixels and DotStars) because they make it easy to create a colorful lightshow using very little hardware apart from the microcontroller (I'm using the Arduino Pro Mini 328 and the Adafruit Trinket) and the RGB LED module(s).
The only observation I can make about the NeoPixel Stick is a self-inflicted issue: I managed to cause some of the solder pads on three different sticks to lift-off the PCB rendering it difficult/impossible to daisy-chain another stick because of the absence of the Dout line.
Edit — I hadn't read the post by the other customer who noted the issue with the solder pads before I posted my review.
Boom I've got a Rainbow!
Quick to solder and start outputting some full color LED action. NeoPixels are very easy to work with and chain together, also this works well with FadeCandy for connecting to Processing or OPC via JavaScript and Node.
To everyone wondering: it's 51.10mm / 2" x 10.22mm / 0.4" x 3.19mm / 0.12"
Is dimensional data available on these boards? Any data sheets with spacing of mounting holes, board size, ect?
This may help: https://github.com/adafruit/NeoPixel-Sticks
A simple communications protocol converter for these LEDS would be great.
What sort of "communications protocol converter" did you have in mind?