Ok, so I switched my wiring to reflect 1 battery to the 5V pin (exactly as it's shown on the fx-saber-os homebrew pixel wiring diagram), and it seemed like things worked for a fraction of a second, but I'm stuck again.
I installed the firmware for diyino prime V1 pixel @ 57600 baud onto one of the nano clones I have. When I give the circuit power, a neat saber effect plays, and then it sits idle (this is instead of one of the sound fontID's like last time). The LED ring on the button doesn't light up anymore. I think I mistakenly bought 6v buttons back when I ordered components, so perhaps I need to go back and get the 3v buttons. That's why the button worked with 2 18650's (now I'm using just one). If I press the activation button, I get about half an ignition sound effect before the speaker cuts out. Then, once the speaker is out, the blade starts to ignite as a pixel setup would, but it only gets about 5-10 pixels before the blade just "turns" on to a steady red color. Then the circuit becomes unresponsive. If I power down, and then back up, the same boot up sound happens, and if I hold down the aux button, it switches sound fonts properly. BUT, as soon as I hit the activation button, I get the same error (with the different font activation sound). Could this be caused by the activation button's LED voltage requirement?
With the same chip/ circuit, if I plug it into the computer before giving it power via battery, when I turn on the battery (to give the LED's, dfplayer, and mpu power) the speaker starts making clicking sounds. No boot up sound. Handshake still failed, but it's hard to know what's going on with the modes without the speaker, activation button, or lights working.
Lastly, I tried a few other chips to see if I had any luck. Two of my other nano clones (one the same brand as the first, the other different) didn't give any results, and the last (the same brand as the first chip that partially worked) yielded the same results as the first test.
Thanks in advance for your help.