Adafruit NeoPixel

Objectives

• hook up a NeoPixel to a micro-controller program the pixel (to do)

See also

• Adafruit Circuit Playground Express
• Adafruit GEMMA
• Adafruit NeoPixel
• MakeCode

• Quality: draft

• Difficulty: beginner

Introduction

In this article we describe the Flora RGB Smart NeoPixel version 2

See also:

• Adafruit Circuit Playground Express
• Adafruit FLORA
• Adafruit GEMMA

The pixel

Main characteristics:

• 12.5mm diameter
• 2.5mm total thickness
• 800 KHz speed protocol
• Chainable design, meaning that you can connect several of these to one pin and chain them
• 5-9VDC power (can run at 3.5V but color will be dimmed), constant current 18.5mA per LED (~55mA max total per pixel)

Hooking up a NeoPixel

According to Hook up alligator clips (retrieved Aug 2019), a NeoPixel must be connected with three wires to a FLORA-type board. Depending on the board, the wiring is bit different. E.g. on a GEMMA, the signal must be wired from A1.

Wiring with a GEMMA

Board	NeoPixel
VOUT Power output	+
GND Grounding	-
D1 / ~A0 General Purpose Input Ouput	↑ (arrow pointing towards the inside)

Gemma - NexPixel wiring (improvised): Read is power, black is grounding and white is the signal

Wiring with a Circuit Playground Express

Board	NeoPixel
VOUT	+
GND	-
A1 General Purpose Input Ouput	↑ (arrow pointing towards the inside)

MakeCode example

Programming a strand of pixels

This also works with a single pixel...

• Code with Makecode

Links

Official documentation (read this)

• Adafruit NeoPixel Überguide
• Sewable NeoPixels
  • Code with Makecode