Cut a length of NeoPixels to fit inside your dragon. He squishes and stretches, but I found that 42 pixels of 60 pixels per meter NeoPixels was about the right length for my dragon. Note down how many pixels you have: you'll need this number later when you're coding.
Cut about 8 inches of ribbon cable wire.
This ribbon cable has 4 wires, and we only need 3. One of the wires has a stripe on it. Let's keep that one, to help us keep track of which wire is which, and get rid of the fourth wire on the opposite edge. Pull that one off and save it for another project.
Separate the remaining wires a bit and strip about 1/4" of shielding from each wire. Solder to the Circuit Playground: striped wire to VOUT, middle wire to A1 and the remaining wire to GND.
For more detailed soldering instructions, check out our How to Solder NeoPixels Guide.
Solder the other end of the wires to your NeoPixel strip. The striped wire goes to +, the middle wire to DI, and the third wire to G.
Be sure you're soldering to the IN end of the strip. You can see little arrows pointing in the direction of data flow if you look closely.
Testing
Our next step will to seal the strip ends so the wires won't pull out with all that shaking going on. But before you do that, it's important to test your strip and make sure your solder joints are good. It's much easier to fix a faulty connection before you've sealed it in glue.
Head over to the code section and upload the sample code. Give your Circuit Playground a shake and make sure the lights come on and stay on. If everything works, move on to the next step. If not, check below for some troubleshooting tips.
Sealing
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