Adafruit Mini Sparkle Motion - ESP32 NeoPixel LED Driver

Sparkle Motion Mini is part of Adafruit's series of "Sparkle Motion" boards, which are their attempt to make the best small WLED-friendly smart LED driving board in the whole world.

Adafruit's resident mermaid, firepixie makes a lot of projects with WLED, and she loves it! So, how to make something powerful enough to drive advanced LED projects that need a compact design?

The Mini version of the Sparkle Motion is a simpler version of the full-featured Sparkle Motion; Adafruit give up the high voltage support and built-in IR receiver, to make it under 1 square inch in size!

This version includes a pre-soldered terminal block, that means no soldering is required to get started: a small screwdriver will get you going instantly. However, the board is bulkier and the terminal block overlaps half of one of the breakout pads.

By using a 4-layer board and double-sided assembly, Adafruit have put together this feature set:

• Power via USB Type C for up to 5V 4A input - you can use off-the-shelf USB battery packs for portable operation.
• 4 Amp resetting fuse to protect from over-current drive
• ESP32 mini module with built-in antenna port - the classic ESP32 has the best WLED support even if we'd prefer the 'S2 or 'S3. Comes with 4 MB of flash, dual core 240MHz Tensilica, WiFi, Bluetooth® LE, and Bluetooth® Classic support.
• USB-serial converter with auto-reset
• Two output signals plus 5V power and ground - both signal output are level shifted to 5V. These are on 0.1" spaced breakout pads.
• Extra 2x3 0.1" breakout pads with 4 more GPIO plus 3V power and ground.
• Built-in I2S microphone
• Stemma QT I2C port to connect external sensors/OLED/etc
• User button on GPIO 0 plus Reset button
• Red built-in LED on pin 12
• Small built-in NeoPixel on pin 18 
• Separate analog/digital input JST port for analog input, potentiometer, microphone, or external IR receiver on pin 13
• Compact enough you can use it for wearable projects - 1.2"x0.8" / 30mm x 20mm size with mounting holes

While Adafruit recommend it for use with WLED, it will also work fine as a compact ESP32 board for use with Arduino, ESP-IDF, MicroPython, CircuitPython, or any other ESP32-supported codebase.

Comes as a fully assembled driver board with a 3.5mm terminal block

Also, unlike the bigger version, Adafruit dropped the on-board IR receiver; however, it's easy to add one by plugging in a JST SH 3-pin socket cable and slotting in an IR receiver module.

Technical Details

Product Dimensions: 32.3mm x 19.7mm x 12.4mm / 1.3" x 0.8" x 0.5"

Product Weight: 5.1g / 0.2oz

Learn

• Primary Guide: Adafruit Sparkle Motion Mini
  Get up and running with your Sparkle Motion Mini Board
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