Hi so I was playing around with a Nano and a 12-LED “neopixel” series array and I discovered that if, after programming the Nano and running the code I uploaded to it, that if I removed the data line from the Nano to the array, that the display sequence stopped and froze at whatever arbitrary time that I removed the data line. Up until that moment I always thought that the LED Array (with each LED being a programmable LED, such as a WS281x....) would continue with its programmed array sequence if the data pin from the microcontroller was removed. I see now how that would not work without someway of timing the individual LED actions to one another.
By the way, does anyone know if there exists some WS281x-type LEDs that have a higher output light power than the predominantly sold ones nowadays?
that if I removed the data line from the Nano to the array, that the display sequence stopped and froze at whatever arbitrary time that I removed the data line.
And I have found that if you do then the there is a high probability of burning out the LED currently being lit, or the one after it.
so I found that I can achieve the exact functionality I mentioned above with a PCA9685 board.
Are you sure? That will just provide 16 separate channels you can set. If you connect each channel to an LED then each LED can be set to blink at a different speed and they are synchronised. That is fine for some patterns but only very simple ones, and you won't be able to change the colour.