Plug in and glow with this incredible, ultra-high-density NeoPixel strip with an astonishing 180 LEDs/meter. That’s no typo; this meter-long strip has 180 miniature NeoPixels crammed together and coated with a milky silicone bead to give it a smooth and continuous color gradient compared to classic LED pixel strips.
The Adafruit NeoPixel 180 LED-per-Meter Silicone Bead LED Strip is 1 meter long and 10mm wide. The strips come on a reel with three 10cm long wires connected to a JST SM 3-pin plug and a 3-pin socket on the other. The wires are even nicely color-coded: black for ground, green for signal, red for 5V DC power. You’ll get SK6812 LEDs on these strips so you don’t need an inline resistor and they work down to 3V logic+power (although they work best at 5V for sure).
NeoPixels are addressable LEDs. You can set the color of each LED’s red, green and blue component with 8-bit PWM precision (so 24-bit color per pixel). The LEDs are controlled by shift-registers that are chained up down the strip so you can shorten the strip if you like by cutting it. Only 1 digital output pin are required to send data down. The PWM is built into each LED-chip so once you set the color you can stop talking to the strip, and it will continue to PWM all the LEDs for you.
The strip is made of flexible PCB material and comes in a weatherproof sheathing. You can cut this stuff pretty easily with wire cutters. Of course, you can also connect strips together to make them longer, just watch how much current you need! We have a 5V/2A supply that is able to drive this strip if you don’t have the LEDs all on white, or really bright. You must use a 3-5V DC power supply to power these strips, do not use higher than 6V or you can destroy the entire strip– yikes!
These LEDs use up to 6.5 Amps max per meter. The max rating is assuming all the LEDs are on full white and there’s no voltage droop! That’s not going to be realistic on such a thin flexible PCB – the copper just isn’t thick enough to handle so much current without heating up! So basically don’t set all the LEDs on at full brightness. Usually, the actual current for colorful design is less than 1/3 of the max current. A good power supply is key!
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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.
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Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: New Python Releases, an ESP32+MicroPython IDE and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
