New Product – Grove 8 Pixel RGBW Stick
This is SwitchDoc Labs 8 Pixel Programmable RGBW Strip. This is a small chainable board with eight 5050 SK6812RGBW RGBW LEDs. The SK6812s are each individually addressable as the driver chip is located inside the LED. Each Stick has ~18mA constant current drive so the color will be very consistent even if the voltage varies, and requires near 5V.
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And a 5 Pack of Grove 8 Pixel RGBW Sticks:
[callout size=”col-12″ title=”5 Pack – Grove 8 Pixel RGBW Stick” button_title=”See Store Page” button_link=”https://shop.switchdoc.com/products/5-pack-8-pixel-rgbw-chainable-stick-with-grove-connectors” button_size=”normal” button_rounded=”true” button_color=”red”]
This stick is based on the SK6812RGBW LEDs. RGBW means that you have the usual R, G and B LEDs, but you also have a seperate White LED. This allows you to have a very clear and pure white out of the stick, instead of just having the R,G and B mixed together to provide White.
Each stick is carefully sized so you can build evenly spaced larger displays out of these sticks.
This stick is NeoPixel compatible.
Each 8 Pixel stick has two Grove connectors. One for input and then one for output. To chain the sticks you connect the output of one stick to the input of another stick and then so on. No soldering required!
Features and Benefits:
- – 8 Pixels – SK6812RGBW Serial LEDs
- – Chainable
- – Symmetric size for large display building
- – ~18mA Constant Current Operation
- – NeoPixel Compatible
- – 3.5 – 5V operation
- – Grove Connectors – No Soldering Required
How Does It Work?
The Grove 8 Pixel RGBW is based on 8 of the SK6812RGBW integrated assembly (otherwise known as NeoPixels).
The SK6812RGBW is a smart LED control circuit and light emitting circuit in one controlled LED source, which has the shape of a 5050 LED SMD package. Each lighting element is a pixel, and the intensities of the pixels are contained within the intelligent digital interface input. The output is driven by PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) technology, which helps guarantees high consistency of the color of the pixels. The control circuit consists of a signal shaping amplification circuit, a built-in constant current circuit, and a high precision RC oscillator.
The serial data protocol being used is unipolar NRZ (Non Return to Zero) communication mode. The 32-bit data (8 bits for R,G,B,W) is transmitted from the controller to DIN of the first element, and if it is accepted it is propagated pixel to pixel. After an internal data latch in the device, the remaining data is passed through the internal amplification circuit and sent out on the DO port to the remaining pixels. The pixel is reset after the end of DIN. Using automatic shaping forwarding technology makes the number of cascaded pixels only limited by signal transmission speed.
The LED has a low driving voltage, high brightness, broad scattering angle, good consistency, low power, and long life. The control circuit is integrated in the SK6812RGBW package.
Grove Connectors On The Grove 8 Pixel RGBW Stick
There are two Grove Connectors on the Grove 8 Pixel Stick, both of which are Grove Digital connectors.
J1 – Grove Input – Digital
This Connector can be used to connect up to a processor such as the Raspberry PI, Arduino or ESP32.
| J1 – Grove Input Digital | ||
| Pin 1 | DIN | Digital Serial Input |
| Pin 2 | N/C | No Connect |
| Pin 3 | VDD | Power for Grove Module |
| Pin 4 | GND | Ground |
J2 – Grove Output – Digital
The Grove Output can be connected to an Input of additional 8 Pixel Sticks to build bigger displays.
| J1 – Grove Output Digital | ||
| Pin 1 | DOUT | Digital Serial Output for Chaining |
| Pin 2 | N/C | No Connect |
| Pin 3 | VDD | Power for Grove Module |
| Pin 4 | GND | Ground |
Downloads
You can use any NeoPixel driver on your computer as long as it supports the SK6812RGBW data format.
Arduino Driver (coming soon)
ESP32 Driver (coming soon)
Raspberry Pi Driver (coming soon)