And here’s a new variation, a veritable bundle of Soft Flexible Wire Mini NeoPixels! Attaching NeoPixel strips to your costume can be a struggle as the flexible PCBs can crack when bent too much. So how to add little dots of color? Use this stranded NeoPixel that uses soft cords of plated wire! They’re very small, so they’re easy to embed into any structure, costume, or wearable. The wires can be sewn over, or embedded in a casting.
The strip is made of flexible wires with a coated NeoPixel every ~100mm (~4 inches) with a total of 50 LEDs. It does not come with weatherproof sheathing so you cannot wash these or dunk them underwater. You can cut the strand pretty easily with wire cutters. Note that while the wires are coated so they don’t short against each other, that coating will wear off over time especially when flexed, so avoid abrasion or repeated flexing of the connector cables.
The ground wire is marked with a light red stripe. The data wire is the middle wire. The remaining wire is +5V power. The strands come with connectors pre-attached but you can carefully solder to the flexible wires as well. Of course, you can also connect strands together to make them longer, just watch how much current you need! We have a 5V/4A supply that should be able to drive 1 meter and a 5V/10A supply that can drive up to 10 meters (depending on use) You must use a 5V DC power supply to power these strips, do not use higher than 6V or you can destroy the entire strip.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.