NeoPixel Stick - 8 x WS2812 5050 RGB LED

Make your own little LED strip arrangement with this stick of NeoPixel LEDs.

This board has 8 of the 5050 (5 mm × 5 mm) smart RGB LEDs on a PCB with mounting holes and a chainable design. Use only one microcontroller pin to control as many as you can chain together!

Each LED is addressable as the driver chip is inside the LED. Each one has ~18 mA constant current drive so the colour will be very consistent even if the voltage varies, and no external choke resistors are required — making the design slim. Power the whole thing with 5 VDC (4–7 V works) and you’re ready to rock.

The LEDs are chainable by connecting the output of one stick into the input of another. There is a single data line with a very timing-specific protocol. Since the protocol is sensitive to timing, it requires a real-time microcontroller such as an AVR, Arduino, PIC, mbed, etc. It cannot be used with a Linux-based microcomputer or interpreted microcontroller such as the netduino or Basic Stamp.

Adafruit’s NeoPixel library for Arduino supports these pixels. There is also the FastLED library which I’ve used to get up and running quickly.

Also check out our NeoPixel Starter Strip Try Me Pack, *mini* 10 RGB Pixel Strip, and 60/meter RGB Pixel Strips.

• Comes as a single stick with 8 individually addressable RGB LEDs assembled and tested.
• Soldering required.
• Available on black or white PCB — choose your preference above.