Electronics Assembly

Carefully cut your Neopixel strips along the cut lines at the length needed for your hat.

Cut the male lead wires (not the ones that plug into the battery, the other ones) off your switch and strip 1/4" of each wire.

Cut a 3" piece of red wire and black wire, and a 2-3 foot piece of red wire and black wire. Splice both the long and short red wire onto the red wire coming from your switch. Repeat with the black wires.

Cut a 3/4" piece of heat shrink for each end of each strip -- so, 4 pieces total. Slip them over the silicone sheath and up out of the way for now.

Solder the 3" wires coming from the switch to the out end of the FRONT strip.  (Look for the arrows to indicate data direction and solder to the end the arrows are pointing towards.)

Solder the long wires to the in end of the TAIL strip (arrows pointing away.)

Cut another 3" red and black wire and also a 3" yellow wire.  Cut a 2 foot green wire.

Solder all three 3" wires to the in end of the FRONT strip (the end with no wires yet), and the long green wire to the in end of the TAIL strip (where the other long wires are already soldered).

Solder the other end of the long green wire to Flora's pin 6.

Solder the 3" red wire to VBAT, the black wire to G and the yellow wire to pin 12.

Plug your battery in to the JST connector on your switch and test to be sure all the lights come on.

The power switch on the Flora board can be left in the “ON” position. The toggle button from the battery is then used to switch the circuit on or off. If your hat gets bumped and isn’t responding, check that the switch is “on.”

Once your sure the whole circuit is working, slip the heat shrink down over the ends of both strips.  Fill the end of the silicone sheath with hot glue, then quickly slide the heat shrink over and shrink in place.  This will keep your strips water tight and fairly break-resistant.