These nets are 20 pixels wide with 5mm spacing. A 1m net is a 20x20 square and contains 400 pixels.
The Sparkle Motion board has 4 outputs: 3 in the screw terminal and another using the pins just to the left of it. WLED prefers no more than 800 pixels per output (though it will work with more, just not as smoothly) and xLights sets a hard limit of 1000 pixels per output.
Keep this in mind when you're setting up your project. For the larger nets with 1200-1800 pixels, you may want to add a second data line that connects into the net after the first 800 pixels, for best performance.
It's also a good idea to connect another power line at the far end of the net -- the manufacturers have broken out power injection wires every 800 pixels on the bigger nets to make this easy. If you're getting flickering or voltage drop across the pixels, try adding another power injection point.
The Sparkle Motion is built to power LEDs, but for very large projects with larger power draws, it's a good idea to run the power directly to the lights instead of pulling it all through the board.
How many LEDs Can I Connect?
The Sparkle Motion board has four outputs for LED strips: 3 in the screw terminal and one more using the GPIO pins next to the screw terminal. It has a "Classic" ESP32 chip onboard.
Driving Pixels with WLED
For perfect performance, it is recommended to use 512 LEDs/pin with 4 outputs for a total of 2048 LEDs.
For very good performance, it is recommended to use 800 LEDs/pin with 4 outputs for a total of 3200 LEDs.
For good performance, you can use 1000 LEDs/pin with 4 outputs for a total of 4000 LEDs.
For okay performance, you can use 1000 LEDs/pin with 5 outputs for a total of 5000 LEDs.
For okay performance, you can use 800 LEDs/pin with 6 outputs for a total of 4800 LEDs.
ESP32 can calculate about 65k-85k LEDs per second (that means 1000 LEDs @~70fps, 2000 LEDs @~35fps, 4000 LEDs @~18fps)
4 outputs seem to be the sweet spot.
How Do I Power It?
For Adafruit's 1x1 meter net, these power supplies will work great.
For larger projects (more than 800 pixels), or projects that will be placed outdoors, try this power supply (or similar):
For wearable or portable projects, you can use this 8xAA battery pack for 12v pixels. But if you're making a wearable project, you might also want to check out the Sparkle Motion Mini board. It's not quite as powerful and won't drive 12v pixels, but can power up to 4A at 5v and that's plenty for most costume pieces. Check out our 5v Pebble Pixels to go along with it.
Page last edited March 05, 2025
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