Chesapeake's BREADLED Brings WS2812 LEDs to Your Breadboard and Perfboard Projects, Without the Bulk
Open-hardware breakout board offers through-hole compatibility for the popular addressable LEDs — in a very small footprint.
Maker Chesapeake has designed an ultra-compact breakout board that aims to add breadboard compatibility to popular WS2812 addressable RGB LEDs without taking up too much space: the BREADLED.
"BREADLED is a breakout board for WS2812 addressable LEDs, designed to fit perfectly into common breadboards and perfboard without taking up an excessive amount of space," Chesapeake explains of the project. "Each board is populated with a WS2812E and a 100nF capacitor; all you need to do to use it is to plug it into a microcontroller!"
Each BREADLED includes six header pins, three per side: two mirrored ground and 5V pins, an input pin, and an output pin. With a capacitor already fitted, they need no additional components — other than something to send the signals which tell each LED what to do.
Chesapeake has released the KiCad design files for the BREADLED boards on GitHub under the permissive Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license, and is selling boards with the surface-mount parts pre-populated on Tindie at $1 each — though you'll need to supply and fit your own 2.54mm header pins before they're ready for your breadboard.