These lights have a male connector on the IN end and a female connector on the OUT end. The strands are directional -- they won't work if you hook up the wrong end.
Cut the female connector (from the OUT end) off one of your light strands, leaving a couple inches of wire attached. This will attach to the connector on the Mini Sparkle Motion to can plug the lights in using the IN end / male connector.
Strip a little bit of shielding from the three wires on your connector and attach them to the Mini Sparkle Motion as shown: red to +5v, green to 32, and black to G.
If you have the screw terminal version the connections are the same -- hook them up using your tiny screwdriver.
Plug the Mini Sparkle Motion into your other light strand -- the one that still has both connectors intact. Plug the first strand into the OUT / female plug attached to this strand. The cut off wires will be at the end of the line.
Plug in your USB battery and see if your lights come on. If you've already installed the software and all goes well, they will come on in a warm yellow color. If they come on in a different color, head back to the previous page and find the instructions for fixing the Color Order.
Troubleshooting
If your lights don't come on or behave the way you expect, here are a few things to try:
- Try re-uploading the software
- Make sure your GPIO pin is set correctly in LED Settings -- it should be 32. If you don't reboot the board after setting up the audio reactive stuff, sometimes this won't get saved even if you set it up right.
- Check to be sure you actually connected to pin 32. If you connected to 33, change the number in the software to reflect that.
- If the lights still don't come on, your strand may be wired a different way. Sometimes these strands come with the male on the OUT end and female on the IN. Try switching the connectors around to plug in the other end of the strand.
Page last edited May 05, 2026
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