Mini Sparkle Motion with Pre-soldered Terminal Block – ESP32 NeoPixel LED Driver

The Adafruit Sparkle Motion Mini is a compact ESP32-based WLED driver board with USB-C power input up to 5V 4A, dual 5V level-shifted outputs, built-in microphone, Stemma QT I2C port, GPIO breakout pads, and integrated NeoPixel.

The Adafruit Sparkle Motion Mini is part of our series of ‘Sparkle Motion’ boards, which are our attempt to make the best small WLED-friendly smart LED driving board in the whole world. Our resident mermaid, firepixie, makes a lot of projects with WLED, and she loves it! So, hw can we 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 our full-featured Sparkle Motion; it doesn’t include the high voltage support or IR receiver, to make it under 1 square inch in size!

This version includes a pre-soldered terminal block, which 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. (We also sell a Mini Sparkle Motion – WLED-friendly ESP32 NeoPixel LED Driver, which comes without the terminal block).

By using a 4-layer board and double-sided assembly, we’ve 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 outputs are level shifted to 5V. These are on 0.1′ spaced breakout pads.
• Extra 2×3 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 we 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, we 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.

Specifications

• Product Dimensions: 32.3mm x 19.7mm x 12.4mm

• Product Weight: 5.1g

Resources

• Primary Guide: Adafruit Sparkle Motion Mini

Package contents

• 1x Mini Sparkle Motion with Pre-soldered Terminal Block – ESP32 NeoPixel LED Driver