The toughest part of the project is probably just soldering to the strip. First, cut the piece to the length you want, on the cuttable boundaries. Next, tin the 6 INPUT pins (make sure you're connecting to SI/CI/DI/LI which is input, not the corresponding SO/etc pins!)
Some strips arrive with wires pre-soldered for testing at the factory, but these might be at either end of the strip and aren't necessarily useful. Check three times to make sure you’re connecting to the INPUT side! Just because you have a strip with wires attached does not mean they’re on the right end.
Tin the pads by carefully melting a little solder onto the pads:
Some strips arrive with wires pre-soldered for testing at the factory, but these might be at either end of the strip and aren't necessarily useful. Check three times to make sure you’re connecting to the INPUT side! Just because you have a strip with wires attached does not mean they’re on the right end.
Tin the pads by carefully melting a little solder onto the pads:
Solder the +5V power wire to the +5V pin. We’ll use red:
Connect the ground signal/power pin to GND. We’ll use black:
Follow up by connecting the data lines. We won’t be using the SI pin (the strobe function of the chip is not supported by our example code), so connect Yellow to LI (latch), Green to CI (clock), and Blue to DI (data):
Great! You're now ready to use the strip. You may want to use heatshrink to provide a secure cover for the wires, or stuff hotglue in the end, which will do the same.
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