Smart controlled daisy-chain RGB LEDs

WS2812 RGB LEDs are brilliant, easy-to-control individual compound LEDs. Each one has red, green and blue channels and you can blend the intensity of these three colours to create pretty much any colour you like.

For example, if you were to set the red and green channels to full strength, with zero blue, you’d create an orangey-yellow colour. Half intensity red and full blue would give a subtle indigo shade and so on. All three at full brightness create white light.

One of the best things about the WS2812B is that it can be “daisy chained” – meaning if you want to control more than one LED, you can simply keep adding to the end of the chain.

Another brilliant thing about them is that they are individually addressable; so you can make the first in the chain a red colour, the next blue, the next yellow, the next white, the next two turned off completely, the next purple and so on.

They also use a single data wire to connect them together – so just three wires and you can have as many LEDs as you like, all chained together, and all individually controllable.

This PCB design is for two parts – to allow for maximum flexibility, then plan is to have a “ring main” – carrying the power, data and ground lines – and then from this, create a “spur” with each individual “pixel” or LED.

The PCB is double-sided and will have to be manufactured in a factory (in China) as creating something so tiny and precise and prone to error is bound to test even my patience for soldering tiny components to even smaller copper traces!