I am looking to connect a 1m OR 5m WS2812 strip (RGB+W) to an Arduino board for some colorful lighting effects. Can someone please recommend a reasonably priced and decent quality seller, eBay/amazon or aliexpress?
Recommend Best Value WS2812 LED Strip (Quality+Price)
![](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/g/38.jpg)
Comments
Agree - just grab whatever looks legit on Aliexpress. Get the WS2812B, its better.
Something to keep in mind when using ESP based boards, the WS2812 chips are meant to be used with 5v IO, while the ESP boards have 3.3V IO. Some people report issues with this, so ideally you should use a buffer to shift your IO voltage from 3.3 to 5.
Having said that, I use an ESP32 on mine without a buffer, without any issues. :)
Interested in addressable LED lighting?
Then goto:
auschristmaslighting.comIt's where all us controlled-lighting folks go to further our interests.
It's a brilliant site!In AliExpress both of these two companies are good for anything to do with WLED; Xnbada and BTF Lighting , I been using them for while, good quality and fast delivery.
I also used BTF lighting and enjoyed tehir stuff years ago
I end up getting whatever looks OK on Aliexpress.
Even buying from the same supplier a month or so later, you may get something that's different.
That being said: I've never had a faulty strip, for RGBW ones they're all pretty similar. If you were getting plain white though even if you get the same colour temp they tend to vary ever so slightly (which sucks if you add one extra bit to an existing project).
Side note: I've moved from using Arduino for my WS2812 LEDs to ESP8266 or ESP32 boards with WLED - Wifi controlled LED strips baby! ;D