{"id":17590,"date":"2024-07-03T19:45:29","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T23:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/?p=17590"},"modified":"2024-07-03T19:45:29","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T23:45:29","slug":"cheap-neopixels-at-the-dollar-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/03\/cheap-neopixels-at-the-dollar-store\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheap NeoPixels at the Dollar Store"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exhibit A:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"box<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

also known as “Monster BASICS<\/em> Sound reactive RGB+IC Color Flow LED strip”. It’s $5 or so at Dollarama, and includes a USB cable for power and a remote control. It’s two metres long and includes 60 RGB LEDs. Are these really super-cheap NeoPixel<\/a> clones?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m going to keep the USB power so I can power it from a power bank, but otherwise convert it to a string of smart LEDs. We lose the remote control capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pull back the heatshrink at the USB end:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"led<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 and there are our connectors. We want to disconnect the blue Din (Data In<\/em>) line from the built in controller, and solder new wires to Din and GND to run from a microcontroller board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"led<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Maybe not the best solder job, but there are new wires feeding through the heatshrink and soldered onto the strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"led<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here’s the heatshrink pushed back, and everything secured with a cable tie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now to feed it from standard MicroPython NeoPixel<\/a> code, suitably jazzed up for 60 pixels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A pretty decent result for $5!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exhibit A: also known as “Monster BASICS Sound reactive RGB+IC Color Flow LED strip”. It’s $5 or so at Dollarama, and includes a USB cable for power and a remote control. It’s two metres long and includes 60 RGB LEDs. Are these really super-cheap NeoPixel clones? I’m going to keep the USB power so I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3315,2],"tags":[3202,2208,3094,3232],"class_list":["post-17590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electronics","category-goatee-stroking-musing-or-something","tag-dollarstore","tag-electronics","tag-micropython","tag-neopixel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQNZZ-4zI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17596,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17590\/revisions\/17596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}