So I read your project idea and I cant help with your issue however I have done something very similar using 2 uno's, fadecandy and the processing software for fadecandy. The car part was the easy bit (25 years MECP mast BUT noob to MCU's. Anywho, Heise makes 12v ws2811s now and a controller with user programmable patterns via SD card. I'd just as soon hack the remote it comes with than go thru all that again. Ive spent 3 days off/on trying to sort out avrdude: initialization failed rc=-1 for a gimbal controller and i coulda amazon'd a new one. Sometimes its just easier to hack something but oh the satisfaction.... Hope your T.Lights go well!