Hi i am making a led sphere with 194 leds for the first time and the videos i see all use batteries to power them but i want to hard wire it so it has a lead and plug. The leds are the ws2812b rgb ones what board should i get and can the board be wired so it can be so many meters away hidden in a container?
For the power i think i need 5v max right?
Thank you
What the board? Arduino? What arduino has to do with your question about supplying the leds? Are you going to power them from the board?
Power measured in watts, not volts
Well 5V is correct, but it is a matter of current capacity. Allow 60mA for each LED for when they are on at full brightness.
It depends on how far this is exactly. Probably not but you can use differential buffers at both ends to get over that.
On amazon it recommendeds multiple drivers/boards i cant quite remember and on youtube for this particular thing in am making they use a small board thats attached to a battery but i dont want to use a battery and i also dont want it with the leds like this guy has done.
Sorry if im being a little dumb here.
Heres the video
Thanks
Well I don't understand your question.
What specifically did you not understand about my answer?
Reread yourself - you have explained what don't you want....and it's all.
Please describe your project in more detail.
Ok so here is my project, i wanted the board that powers/drives the leds in the base that this model stands on and the power cable runs through his body and comes out through his hand and then connects to the ball. You should be able to see what im trying to do through these pictures with some cheap leds at the moment. The led ball will sit inside the pink ball and act as a diffuser so i can have some animated led effects running if thia makes sense? I have only ever bought leds with them already powered so this is the first time for me.
Thanks
Thank you, it looks great
.... but I still don't understand what is your question exactly.
It seems to me that you use a word "board" with different meaning than usual on that forum.
Ah ok sorry what i meant what was the chip you connect the leds to for the power and to programme the leds on a computer.
This returns us to my first reply: do not confuse the power and the data. The mcu that controls the leds usually do not power it. For your quite long led strip you definitely need an external power supply with nominal led voltage (perhaps 5v) and the current, calculated as answered in post 3
As for control board - for 194 led you can use almost any arduino - for example most popular Uno or Nano
Thank you very much 
So a 5v 12 amp power supply is ok to run all 194 leds at full brightness right?
I run 300 WS2812 with 12vdc 5A, however, I do not maximize the brightness (255 B, 255 R, 255 G). It changed color combinations with holidays, but then changed it to a simple "white" marquee.
Yes that is correct.
You may use less current if the LEDs are not switched to maximum brightness. This brightness limit can often be controlled by software. However occasionally when turning on all the LEDs can light up at once before any software has time to run. Thus drawing a lot more current than you might be expecting.
Thank you i think only white gives off full brightness right? I only need a combination of blue and purple as thats the characters led power colour theme so i doubt ill be using much.
It depends on how you make the purple. Each colour LED takes 20mA to produce the brightest for that colour.
By the way you are best getting individual WS2812 LEDs mounted on a small board, like this in this link but you should be able to get them cheaper
Thats more expensive though because its £5 for 10 and i need 194 but a strip has 144 for £15 unless they are weaker?
Have you tried looking for a cheaper price, maybe somewhere local to you? I did say they were not the cheapest.
The point is that they are more flexible in how you can use them. If you have a strip then you have to use the spacing of the strip and given what you want the spacing will be too close together. Unless of course you chop a strip into individual LEDs which is messy to say the least.
The guy that made this led sphere has the strip and takes off the leds although it doesnt show him specifically but you see them popping off in the video i posted. I couldnt say if it was easy or not to do it that way without trying. I think the cheapest i have found so far with the leds already separate is £60 but they are out of stock.
That is because he does not start off with an LED strip. What he hangs round his neck at the start of the video is individual LEDs in a plastic "tape on reel". This is meant for feeding into pick and place machines. They are not on a strip so he does not have to remove them from a strip. As you peal off the plastic transparent top cover the individual LEDs are in the black plastic tray on the underside. These are much much cheaper than buying a pre-soldered strip.
£60 is way over the top for 194 LEDs.
Here you are £10.40 for 200 LEDs
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255391996215
Note it says white PCB which only goes to show that most electronic vendors on eBay don't have a clue as to what they are selling.
This is the picture in that listing which shows the structure of packaging I described.
