Users who wish to use multiple Qwiic LED Sticks chained together or even with an external APA102C LED Strip
connected to the LED PTH header on the side of the board will need to do some minor soldering assembly as well
as adjusting solder jumpers.
First, take into account the max current draw the LED Stick chain will pull. At full power, each APA102C can draw
as much as 40mA when set to white (full Red, Green and Blue) at full brightness so we recommend testing the
current draw of your LED chain prior to wiring up long chains of LED Sticks (or adding an extra LED strip) to avoid
damaging your controller. In our testing, while running all 10 LEDs at full brightness and White color, the strip only
pulled
[email protected] so you should be safe powering a few of these from your microcontroller but note that most
Qwiic development boards use a 3.3V/600mA regulator to power devices connected to the Qwiic connector.
For detailed assembly instructions and tips for building APA102 LED circuits, take a look at our APA102
Addressable LED Hookup Guide:
APA102 ADDRESSABLE LED HOOKUP GUIDE - HARDWARE ASSEMBLY
If using a separate power supply to power the LEDs, adjust the VLED jumper to the VIN side and connect a supply
voltage between 3.0 to 5.5 to the VIN and GND pins capable of supplying enough current to power the LED chain.
After making your power supply connections, plug the Qwiic LED Stick to the controller using a Qwiic cable or the
I C PTH pins.
Now that our Qwiic LED Stick circuit is assembled, let's take a look at the software packages we use to control
them over I C.
Qwiic LED Stick Arduino Library
Note: This library assumes you are using the latest version of the Arduino IDE on your desktop. If this is your
first time using Arduino, please review our tutorial on installing the Arduino IDE. If you have not previously
installed an Arduino library, please check out our installation guide.
The SparkFun Qwiic LED Stick Arduino Library makes controlling the LED stick as easy as sending the command
setLEDColor() with three RGB values to set the color along with a host of other functions to control the LED
Stick. Install the library by searching for "SparkFun Qwiic LED Stick" in the Arduino Library manager. Users who
prefer to manually install it can get the library from the GitHub Repository or download the ZIP by clicking the
button below:
SPARKFUN QWIIC LED STICK ARDUINO LIBRARY (ZIP)
Library Functions
The list below outlines all the functions available in the Qwiic LED Stick library along with quick descriptions of
what they do.
Class
Construct the LED object in the global scope. The examples use LEDStick as the Qwiic LED Stick object.
LED LEDStick;
Device Setup and Settings
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