Hi. Ive built up my first Proffie board from CC Sabers on a breadboard. Ive loaded the default SD files to the CARD and the latest OS to the board. The board boots and the debug terminal in Arduino IDE is active (shows supply voltage, etc). For the test LEDS I have a neopixel LED strip from adafruit attached. It doesnt light up. I also tried attaching a strip from a Disney Savis workshop saber and no-go. Whats the first place I should look for the problem?
Do you have battery power or just running it from USB?
Also, I should point out that a neopixel strip might draw more power than the breadboard can handle.
I was trying to power it with the same Li battery that the Proffie was using. Turns out the Adafruit strip needs at least 9V, but should be 12V. I hooked up a 12V wall wart and voila! Not sure why the Disney blade wont work. The saber runs on 3 AAA, so 4.5V. It should light up with 3.7. Ill try again tomorrow.
That adafruit strip is likely a WS2811 or other kind of neopixel strip, the WS2812Bs or SK6812s we (typically) use in sabers run off of 5v, and can be powered by the 3.7V from a li-ion.
Also, the disney saber is a completely different technology.
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Also worth mentioning that WS2811s aren’t individually addressable, (only by every 3 LEDs), which makes them much less ideal for saber blades. (The fact that there’s groups of 3 LEDs in series is also what requires higher voltage)
THe Disney isnt neopixel? in the V2 changelog it says it supports the savi workshop blades.
This is not normally the case. Most WS2811 strips are individually adressable.
Correct, the Savi blades are not neopixels. They are also not really individually addressable. They only supporta limited range of colors and on/off commands.
You need to use the the not-very-well-documented SaviBladePtr in your config file to use disney blades.
While it’s possible to use this strip for a saber, I do not recommend it.
Get a 5v strip instead.
Im not planning on putting it in a saber. Its just for my test bench setup to learn the Proffie board. Its working well now with 12V.
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Really? Most the WS2811s I’ve seen have had the external IC and had each three LEDs controlled together. 
(Well, actually all the WS2811s I’ve seen, I haven’t seen one that has every LED individually addressable)
If you don’t mind, could you send me a link to ones that are? Really just out of curiosity more than anything 
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The ones I’m thinking of has the WS2811 chip baked into the LED module rather than separate. I’m not sure if they still make those though since WS2811 has been superseded by WS2812, which in turn has been superseded by WS2813.
Seems they still sell individual WS2811 chips though.
Interesting, I didn’t know that was a thing!
So is Neopixel Adafruits invention? they seem to take credit for it on their site. Even DigiKey references adafruits neopixel manual
Yes. It’s a trademark.
Though I would honestly put it in the category of generalised trademark like Hoover or Kleenex.
For saber use, the generic term for neopixels is just “pixels”.
A slightly more specific name would be “WS281x LED”, but that is also slightly misleading since SK9812 and others are also included.
If they’re actually using Adafruit’s LED strips I guess I would just use neopixel. If theyre some kind of clone I guess you cant use Adafruit’s trademark.
Adafruit doesn’t make pixel strips AFAIK. They just buy WS281x strips and sell them under the neopixel name I think. They certainly did not design the chips or the protocol. Neopixels is a great name, but it’s just a name.
Oh, so what are they taking credit for exactly?