I plan to use up to 6 LED stripes with 72 WS2812 LEDs per stripe.
I wonder if it's best to connect them each with a data pin from the Arduino or best to use just one pin and chain these stripes all into one long stripe.
I guess 6 separate stripes on 6 pins are better but maybe there are reasons why one long stripe would be better.
The stripes will be max 50cm apart from each other. So all together max 6 stripes + 6 * 50cm wire.
I know the programming has to be different depending how I do this. I know how to do this but I want to check before I finalize the program.
Another question is if a Nano is good enough to do this or if I need a "bigger" Arduino. Currently I have one Nano and one Mega for testing. If I know that the Nano will be likely too small or at least possible get to it's limits then I better want to know now to order some new board(s).
Yes, you can chain all 6 strips to a single Arduino pin. Nano will be fine to control them, but not to power them. You will need a separate 5V, 25A+ power supply (you have over 400 LEDs!), use good quality heavy guage power cables to each strip, and you must not pass this power through the Nano board. Supply the Nano with separate cables from the PSU, to its 5V & gnd pins.
PaulRB:
Yes, you can chain all 6 strips to a single Arduino pin. Nano will be fine to control them, but not to power them. You will need a separate 5V, 25A+ power supply (you have over 400 LEDs!), use good quality heavy guage power cables to each strip, and you must not pass this power through the Nano board. Supply the Nano with separate cables from the PSU, to its 5V & gnd pins.
Thanks for your answer. I am aware of the power demands and connections - maybe I should have mentioned that in above post.
Apart from that do you see reasons why it would be better or worse to chain them all together instead of using 6 outputs? I guess the signal quality should be better if I have 6 outputs instead of one for all LEDs.