Reddit reviews kuman 100pcs WS2812B 5050 Addressable SMD Smart RGB led Strip LED Lights for Arduino 5V DC Single 1-led LED Module LEDs Black Heat Sink PCB Board
We found 6 Reddit comments about kuman 100pcs WS2812B 5050 Addressable SMD Smart RGB led Strip LED Lights for Arduino 5V DC Single 1-led LED Module LEDs Black Heat Sink PCB Board. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Works great, ready-to-go library & example code for Arduino Duemilanove/Diecimila, Flora/Micro/Leonardo, Trinket/Gemma, for Arduino Due & for Arduino Mega/ADK, FastLED library and Raspberry Pi. It is Kuman brandBuilt-in The ultra bright ws2812b APA102 smart full-color LED is individually addressable. It has 256 brightness display and full 24-bit (16,777,216) color display. You can set to any color or animationAwesome price for the LEDs. Easy to solder leads onto the pre-tinned pads，Have any other components need pre-soldered to the boards，put on a small PCB board that allows you to solder it in whatever configuration you wantThe litlle RGB LED is easy to program, because the addressable IC is built-in the 5050SMD and it makes this led module to light up each individual 5050SMD at your wishVery bright great little pixels for projects. Very handy to have around for all those little ideas you come up with.The library and code are easy to use and manipulate.we can offer tutorial for you by Email via Amazon.
Great project. You may like this pack of 100 Neopixel replacements though. They've always worked well for me and some have run them with 3.3 V instead of 5 V (results may vary).  
$16 for 100 vs $5 for 5 :)
You just got to look around. You might be able to fabricobble something together if you can't get exactly what you need.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01M5BEO1C
Dumb RGB LEDs are cheap but need a lot of wiring (1 per colour + ground).
Ideally, if you're planning on making an array use neopixels (WS2812 is the controller in them). They then have a single data pin and then vcc/gnd. You can get them premade into strips, squares, rings, etc or as individual PCBs, throughholes, or simply the WS2812 cell itself (which are tiny and hard to solder).
Typically to wire up 2812s to an arduino you need to put the Vcc/GND in parallel with the Arduino (microcontroller) and a beefy capacitor (at least 100uF or more) on there in parallel too.
Then a single data pin from the mcu goes to the first ws2812. Typically with prefabed boards/rings/etc they'll have a Din and Dout pads (along with possibly a 2nd set of Vcc/GND) so you just chain the data/vcc/gnd pins.
edit: To answer your actual question at the end yes you can use say common cathode drivers but then 3 pins for R/G/B and then cycle through them quick enough to avoid flicker. This will be very messy to wire up though. WS2812 strips/arrays/etc are handy. For instance this is a 10x10 array of PCB'ed individual WS2812 LEDs. You snap them off and then solder up the vcc/gnd/data pins in a chain to make designs. Alternatively, this is a 4x4 PCB that can also be chained.
WS2018B
Is what I purchased originally. I may get different some that are just white/warm white since their for interiors of buildings and I'll have no need for RGB.
Down the road for sure I'd love to do a disco rave party in a big warehouse, random flickering fluorescent lamps and white/blue welding flashes. Endless possibilities for sure :)
Yes, the Raspberry Pi can handle all of that, you should go with the Raspberry Pi 3 B, the newest model is not necessary. You can easily write a Python script to do all this, using the GPIO's for hardware interfacing, and some libraries for the text.
For the LEDs, you can use individually addressable LED's, which can all be controlled through one GPIO. You can control the humidifier with a relay (through GPIO), and there are some libraries like Jasper for speech to text.
Good work! I just had 300 Neopixel clones arrive and I'm gearing up to build a 16x16 GameFrame clone.