Cut a few short wires in three different colors. I like to use red for the power wire, black for ground, and white for the data line.
Solder the wires to the Mini Sparkle Motion as shown.
Slip a small piece of clear heat shrink onto the LED strip before soldering and move it down the strip until it's out of your way.
Connect the wires to your LED strip, making sure you're soldering to the IN end (the arrows printed on the strip should be pointing away from your solder joints). Connect red to 5v, black to G, and white to 32.
Plug in your microcontroller and verify that the lights come on. If you've loaded WLED they will come on in all yellow, or if you haven't done that yet they'll come on in rainbow. Either way, make sure your strip comes on before you seal it up.
To seal the strip, fill the heat shrink with a little hot glue to pot the wires in plastic. This way they're much less likely to pull off or break while you're assembling the project.
These strips are cuttable at any point. I recommend leaving the strip long until you know exactly how many lights you'll be using in your project, and cutting to length during final assembly.
You'll be able to power the lights directly through the onboard USB port, and the microphone is already integrated -- so that's all the wiring which needs to be done!
Page last edited December 10, 2025
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