Addressable LED Strip Hookup Guide

Pages
Contributors: Nick Poole
Favorited Favorite 11

Light Up Your Life

Nothing looks as festive as a bunch of bright, colorful lights concentrated into a tight space. And for that, I heartily recommend an addressable LED strip. It's very bright, super vivid, and easy to hookup. This tutorial covers all of the wiring and code necessary to light up a single string of addressable LEDs with just a RedStick and a AA Battery Pack.

LED RGB Strip - Addressable, Bare, 1m (APA104)

COM-15206
Retired

Covered in This Tutorial

Required Materials

To follow along with this tutorial, you will need the following parts:

You will also need to following tools:

Suggested Reading

If you've never worked with addressable LEDs or with the RedStick, we recommend checking out these other guides first.

Battery Technologies

The basics behind the batteries used in portable electronic devices: LiPo, NiMH, coin cells, and alkaline.

Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs)

Learn the basics about LEDs as well as some more advanced topics to help you calculate requirements for projects containing many LEDs.

WS2812 Breakout Hookup Guide

How to create a pixel string with the WS2812 and WS2812B addressable LEDs!

RedStick Hookup Guide

Learn about the SparkFun RedStick, a USB thumb drive-sized Arduino-compatible development platform.

Mean Well LED Switching Power Supply Hookup Guide

In this tutorial, we will be connecting a Mean Well LED switching power supply to an addressable LED strip controlled by an Arduino.