I ve got five neopixels connected to an ESP8266. and it seems to work just fine. I’m running them off 3.3v supply. I’ve got .1uF Cap across the power leads at the led end, and 1K resistor inline with the input line,also at the led end. However, when I color cycle the leds (as in a wheel) I see slight flashes as it updates the colors, however not all of them. It only flashes one led per update, and then the next led in line flashes on the next update, and so it works it’s way around each of the five leds. It’s a fairly weak flash. The colors in the sweep update smoothly and glitch free otherwise.
This may sound like a stupid question, but do you have all of your grounds connected together?
All the leds are grounded together and share power. There’s only one ground and power lead to the thing
Not sure what NeoPixels you are using (a link to the unit you have would help) but the datasheet at
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12661
says they need 5V power.
Also it’s not very clear where the 1K resistors are attached and why
I’m actually using the raw leaded leds as opposed to the smd mounted ones. The resistor is right before the first neopixel. That is straight out of the neopixel uber guide, as is the fact that you can run neopixels on 3.3 (i think it’s actually nominally higher). Specifically what they recommend is that if you power the leds with 5v then you will need to level change the signal pin to provide a 5v swing.
I’ve traced it to software glitch where one of my values is going negative when it shouldn’t. Turns out this was a rounding stack up problem. So looks to me like the hardware and frameworks are all working. Thanks for helping me in some critical thinking.