You can also buy plain LED's that are single color Red, Blue etc - but that would not give you the white you are thinking about
Another idea for the controller: Digispark. Relatively easy for a beginner, compared to standalone atmega, ISP shields etc, not quite as easy to use as a Nano, but smaller.
Save the Digispark for an improved version one day.
Working with the Digispark is just adding potential problems. Why I know?
I’ve just finished moving a fully working all done program from a UNO onto a Digispark. Even so, it was a challenge. At least
-
Weird programming method, 100 percent unpredictable. Now with my “magic cable” and adapter, I can get the Digispark reprogrammed about once in 3 or 4 attempts. Various errors, or just works. Naturally the faster I want to work on this thing, the less likely a download is to succeed.
-
No serial port serial monitor, so that’s why I didn’t even try until I thought I had finished.
-
Some libraries aren’t available. Why I learned how to do direct port manipulation and wrote my own fastLED kinda code…
-
The IDE compiler will cheerfully build a program that uses 140 % of you random access memory and never say a word about how that might actually be a deal breaker. So my little project has fewer LEDs and I am looking at ways to eliminate the requirement that the strip have a buffer of contents at all.
That last one kept me too busy for too long with dozens of failed uploads and you’ve caught me at a bad time for letting anyone go off and work with a Digispark, esp. in the expand and explore phase of a project.
The Digispark is a darling little thing, tho, agreed. But only a small step up from dealing with a bare chip.
Some tiny Arduino style boards are almost as small and suffer no particular disadvantages.
a7
@alto777, I agree your warnings and concerns are fair. That's why I presented it as an idea and attached the caveats I mentioned.
My experience has been a little better that yours. Maybe 1 in 4 uploads fail for me, but it is still annoying. I have used the Adafruit NeoPixel library with Digispark and standalone attiny85 successfully. Not because of any great expertise on my part, I'm sure, perhaps just luck.
I used one, as an example, to control case lighting in my PC. Only a handful of leds (small case), so no memory problems.
All of this is why I suggested the board in #8. It's a minor ATmega328 variant of a Pro Mini apparently using s later and slightly cheaper chip. I haven't tried it yet (still waiting for them from China of course) so I don't know if it requires a different IDE setting, but it clearly should be code-identical.
Not sure in which tub my Digisparks are, but that is something else for me to play with "one day"; it sounds less than enthusing. First board I bought was a Leostick and that was put aside as baulky to program. First one I got working was a Pro Mini (clone) and dead easy. All-rounder is the Nano (sorry, clone), cheap and versatile. UNO is very inconvenient unless a shield completes the application in one move.
To the OP: You are going to need to solder to assemble virtually any useful project. The Pro Mini (and variant) or Nano can be used with the header pins fitted and a solderless breadboard for prototyping, but for a final soldered version, you would generally solder wires directly to the module itself. If you have a problem with so many wires connecting to one terminal (ground and to a lesser extent, 5 V) it may be more practical to solder it to a piece of "stripboard" or just use a small strip of stripboard to make the multiple connections!
Do not even think of using the "Vin" or "RAW" pin or on a UNO, the Barrel Jack, for powering it! 
@Paul__B Now that there is a board profile for the knockoff microprocessor LGT8F328P on that board and some good use experience, the excitement around using it may have abated. I still think you might be in for an interesting ride and look forward to hearing a report.
Time is money, but it is hard not to take time to enable use of a $0.79 board.
I use the UNO almost exclusively for experimenting. My favorite clone has the female header plugs AND a row next to them of unsolder through-holes, nice for probing.
I have a set of M-M, M-F and F-F 0.1" jumpers, usually I can quickly set up any experiments w/o soldering. Too much.
When I like something enough to permanize it I select from any number of small Aduino compatible boards I have around. I put some pogo pins on a FTDI device so I can program the non-USB boards w/o soldering. Works good.
My Digisparks came out of a bucket (no, a box, but) just for this reason. I had forgotten what a PITA I found them to be lo those many years ago when I picked them up. But I cannot let them just go to waste… once they are cranking away in something I'll just leave them alone. And probably buy no more.
a7
This topic was automatically closed 120 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.