Adafruit Lightstrips

by AryaVenugopalan in Circuits > Microcontrollers

3163 Views, 42 Favorites, 0 Comments

Understanding a Lightstrip

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First, you need to know that a lightstrip is a bunch of LEDs daisychained together. The three contacts are +5v, GND and DI (data in, AKA DIN). If you are using the same lightstrip, you can solder just 3 wires... Now on to building

Tinning Your Contacts

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Before soldering anything, you need to tin, or cover the contacts on solder. In order to do this you need to hold down the iron on the contact and slowly push solder at it.

Time required: 10 mins, dependent on skill
Tools: Soldering Iron, Solder
Materials: lightstrip, Adafruit Flora

Soldering Wires to and From Your Flora

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This is simple. Use a soldering iron and some cut lengths of wire in order to connect the 2. Solder black wires to GND, red to VBATT, and yellow to D6.

Time: 5-10 mins
Tools: Soldering iron, solder
Materials: Lightstrip,
Flora

Soldering to the Lightstrip

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Same process as the flora. Solder black to GND, red +5v and yellow to DI Time: 5-10 mins

Tools: Soldering iron, solder
Materials: Lightstrip,
Flora

Selecting a Power Supply

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Anything that supplies 5v and has a JST connector will work.

WATCH IT WORK!!

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This is the fun part. Plug in you batteries, and make sure the switch on the flora is on!

Uses

I plan to use this on a longboard. But hey, anything that needs lights, this is it.. Thanks for reading!