The Adafruit Breadboard-friendly RGB NeoPixels take the FLORA NeoPixels and rework them for your breadboard with 3 x input pins and 3 x output pins on a 0.1in. pitch. The pin arrangement allows the data and power lines to be easily daisy chained together on a breadboard or a stripboard.
NeoPixels are individually addressable and can give you 24-bits of colour with 8-bit PWM. These seemingly simple gadgets have triggered an amazing array of creative projects, from watches and compasses to steampunk goggles and more. Each jewel has solder pads for 5V DC and Gnd, plus data-in and data-out, using just 1 x GPIO pin on your microcontroller. Simply feed the data-out from one jewel into the data-in of another to control them both from the same microcontroller (MCU).
Since the data protocol has strict timing requirements, the jewels are best controlled by a real-time microcontroller such as the Arduino rather than a Linux board like the Raspberry Pi. Use an MCU with a clock speed of 8MHz or greater (Arduino is 16MHz).
Adafruit have published a driver library to save you the trouble and let you get on with designing eye catching displays. They have a reputation for the quality of their supporting documentation and you will find their Uberguide to NeoPixels and their Best Practices guides invaluable. In particular the Best Practices guide will help you prolong the life of your NeoPixels and avoid common mistakes.
- Supplied in a pack of 4 x NeoPixels
- Breadboard and stripboard friendly pin layout and pitch
- 60mA current draw per NeoPixel at maximum brightness
- Adafruit part no.: 1312
*Customers looking to resell on eBay or Amazon should contact Adafruit directly.
| No. of LEDs |
4 |
| Shape |
Round |
| Layout |
Single LED |
