WS2812B LED Strip Lights 16.4ft 5M WS2812B 300LEDs Programmable Individual Addressable WS2811 Built-in 5050 RGB LED Strip IP30 Non-Waterproof DC5V with Mini Controller

This is a very good working LED strip, that I bought to make my very own "NeoPixel" led lightsaber that totaled up to about $50 thanks to these nice LEDs in combination with a Rasberry Pi microcontroller, some other components, and a PCB that I had made. Upon testing these LEDs I'd like to let you know that at full power running on 5 volts, this strip will pull about 450-500 mA depending on what colors you are using. Although, you can dim down the LEDs in code to about 1/3 brightness which will draw about 280 mA. The primary red, green, blue are less power, but when you combine the colors you will start pulling more current. I also found that even while idle and having absolutely no LEDs on, the standby current is about 80mA due to the fact that the shift register chips inside of the LEDs still need to be powered. Setup on this LED strip is very simple, if using any type of Arduino IDE compatible microcontroller. There are 3 pins: 5V, data, ground in that order. There are two separate wires in addition to these pins, but these wires are simply the 5V and ground wires that can be connected to a separate power source if you wanted to do that instead. It is worth noting that Adafruit themselves recommend that if you are using a 3.3V data signal with a 5V power source, you should use a 5V buffer chip such as (SN74AHCT125N), this is the setup that I used right off the bat, although it may not be necessary. However, a 5V data signal with a 5V power source will work perfect. Setting up the program is very simple as well for these LEDS. It is directly compatible with the <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h> library, the only thing that you have to do is specify that there are 144 LEDS. Attached is a screenshot of my code to get an idea of how to set it up.

This strip works with my Raspberry Pi 4 using the Python rpi_ws281x library. It works with the official Raspberry Pi USB-C power supply (5V @ 3.1A) though I did need a level shifter for the data line.

See update below! Very important! --------------- Very bright, easy to adjust - but remember, this is a 5 Volt ONLY strip! Will not work with 12V. This was bought for a small project that replaced some trailer interior LED lighting. My lovely bride laughed at them, and approved the upgrade. 5 out of 5 - would use these to brighten up my life again, lol... ------------- There is one issue with this - don't know if you'd call it a problem or not. A 300-led string like this will chew up a good bit of current. If you set it for White, and only feed it power from the ends, toward the middle of the strip it will start to get yellow because it doesn't have enough voltage/current to fully drive the LEDs. The tape it's on doesn't have sufficient copper to drive it at the highest brightness. I ended up using the Alitove 5v 30 amp power supply, and soldering some additional 20gauge wire to it, tapping into the copper pads on the tape about every 16 LEDs. Pay attention to polarities and be sparing in your solder use. With the additional wire and power supply, I can drive two full tapes at full bright white with no fading or yellowing. So - 5 out of 5, would recommend for any lighting purpose like this. Son's kitchen needed some under-cabinet lighting, and now he's got a lot of it!

For some reason they freeze randomly. I’ve tried two different controllers, and they do it on both. The controller that comes with it is very rudimentary and pretty much useless. I purchased a new controller that connects via Bluetooth hoping that would solve the freezing problem. It did not. Although it is a much better controller. I can only assume it’s something wrong with the strip. Update.. turns out that the power supply was not adequate for the lights, ensure that you have at least 2 A in your power supply to run these lights properly.

I made a 15x20 matrix on a old sheet of scrap plexi. Soldering these is not for the rookie, too much heat and you start desoldering the LED or seperate the copper from its setting. Will buy this brand again

I've ordered a couple rolls of this stuff, and will be ordering more. I love LED strips, and WS2812B is by far my favorite (so far). And this particular supplier is using a version of the same 3M adhesive, that everyone else uses, but, this version ACTUALLY STICKS!!! I've had this as ambient backlight on my TV for over two months (HyperBian rocks, BTW) and the adhesive is not budging!

The product ships with a controller that you can easily connect and check if it’s functional. The stripe I received was functional.

i bought these for my wheels, very pretty and multifunctional and i mean multi functional, over 200 lighting modes i dont do reviews but really had to for this,,fully worth the purchase

Fonctionne merveilleusement bien !

Works good, cut them apart and soldered them into some different patterns. They run FastLED great no complaints.