Neopixel Current vs. Arduino Power Supply Voltage

Just to show why powering Neopixels directly from an Arduino is a Bad Idea, I wired up an Adafruit Jewel thusly (and, BTW, exactly like their lead illustration shows):

Makes your skin crawl just to look at it, right?

With all seven Neopixels set to a gray PWM (64,64,64), the average current should be around 90 mA: 21 * 18 mA * 64/255, with another 6% knocked off because the WS2812B controller imposes that much mandatory dark time at PWM 255.

Eyeballometrically, this looks pretty close at 100 mA/div:

But those seven asynchronous PWM oscillators guarantee this will happen every now & again:

The 400 mA peaks happen when all seven Neopixels turn on at once. The broad flat floor means they’re off most of the time and the power supply sees a hefty 400 Hz pulsating load.

The bottom trace shows the effect of those peaks in the top trace (at 200 mA/div) on the Arduino’s VCC pin:

That’s at 200 mV/div and AC coupled to remove the 5 VDC supply. Because the board runs from USB power, the on-board regulator doesn’t contribute to the problem, but there’s plenty of problem to go around.

Always use an external power supply and a 5 VDC regulator with Neopixels!