Neopixels for any 3D printer - Marlin, Klipper and RRF guide

If you like bling for your 3D printer, this guide is for you. Whether it be Marlin, Klipper or RepRapFirmware, you can control digital Neopixel RGB LEDs to add some colour. Neopixels are ideal for lighting the print area, informing of the printer status, creating mood lighting for a timelapse or just making a visual statement.

The TH3D products in this video were provided free of charge for the purpose of making this guide. All opinions expressed are my own.

0:00 Introduction

1:00 What are Neopixels? How do they work?

1:57 TH3D EZneo strips

2:31 Mounting and cable management

3:28 Wiring - data pin

4:08 Wiring - power pins

6:00 Connecting to the mainboard

6:42 Firmware - TH3D Unified firmware

6:53 Firmware - Marlin

7:52 Firmware - Klipper

8:18 Firmware - RRF

9:03 Control - Marlin

10:32 Control - Klipper

11:25 Control - RRF

12:38 Macros for efficiency

12:58 Conclusion: Uses for Neopixels

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[matthewdolman]

The timing of this video couldn't be more perfect. I've just finished my voron 2.4 and 5 meters of neopixels just arrived in the mail today.

[capitalinventor]

Thank you for another interesting and informative video. While I may not be able to always take advantage of everything in your videos they are well-made, informative, and interesting. Your site to help with 3D printer configuration and fixing errors is amazing. Thanks for everything you contribute to the community.

[mouseFPV]

Literally last weekend I installed an skr mini e3 v2. I saw the neopixel port and thought "wonder what that is for". This is super cool.

[FufsowyFufs]

I attached my addressable RGB strip directly to raspberry pi running octoprint and for me it's the best solution

[lonsdaleop]

Its like you have been watching me and know what i needed help with.

[liveen]

For the "onboard 5v regulators" most boards use AMS1117-5V ICs, which can output 1A without issue. With WS2812B strips (neopixel) consuming 50Ma max on average if you're really, really pushing it (NOT 60-80, if yours are consuming that much, they're damaged and can catch fire or melt), it will take a lot of diodes in the strip to consume that much. If you're not using the USB port to power anything, and not using the display (klipper peeps), you're fine using the board's 5V regulator/-s.

[cxob]

RGB lights are useful when they are set in macros. So you can see at a glace what the printer is doing.
I set mine to red for heating up, White for printing so i can see the print well with the webcam and some other colors for various macros like filament change.

[RomanoPRODUCTION]

Thank you Michael for the red coloring, your vampire family in Europe always loves you <3

[roboto_]

'i've chosen to call my setup neo because it is the one' 😂

[thetechy]

Excellent guide! Couple questions though. I have a Creality 4.2.7 board, would I plug the data line into the port right next to the display port? Also, could I power 15 leds from that port, or do I need a converter? I have no other devices plugged in

[joshuaobelenusable]

If you are using an external power supply (i.e. wall wart) instead of the mainboard, you will have to split the ground wire on the strip and have one from power and one to the board. The signal pin needs reference to ground on the board.

[klusou]

Nice Guide, Unfortunate I had the Problem that the Signal Voltage was only 3.3V and I did not find a PWM Pin with 5V. Had to use a arduino nano as a secondary mcu in klipper for this to work.

[BelinFieldson]

When I added neopixels to my Marlin instance, enabling the reactive colors disabled the ability to continue paused prints in terminal with M600 due to a known bug in Marlin.

[wester]

Your videos are so informative! I am an electrician/instrument tech that turned industrial project design engineer with some PLC programming knowledge. This seems like it should be simple for me, but I am slightly nervous to smoke one of my printers. I have an Ender 3 Pro, Ender 3 V2 Neo, and an Ender 3 S1 Plus. I did buy the Sonic pad, but it is still in the box as I am unsure of which printer I want to apply it to.

[bioskhvd]

Love the lowkey humour! "I called mine neo because it is the one"... hahahaha

[catalinalb]

Great content, I learned so much from your Channel, keep up! 🙂 👍

[smorris]

I haven't worked out how much current my 6 stepper Ender5 uses but I'd get a dedicated PSU for things like this (not forgetting to common the ground rails) rather than put any more load on the printer power supply

[fullydimension]

thank you very much, I learn a lot from your videos!

[videoviewer]

Just FYI. For Klipper/Fluid, you can not use the Pi's GPIO pins directly to run the Neopixel. The onboard Linux process is unable to reliably meet the Neopixel timing requirements. (Octoprint somehow has a solution)

[bartomiej]

There is one major issue with neopixels (based on ws2812), they don't like 3.3V logic level if powered with 5V (which is their standard power supply), it won't damage anything, just won't work and can give you a headache, there are several solutions (it's not trivial since it needs pretty fast timmings), cheapest one is sacrifice pixel.