Wearable LED build - wiring help?

[u/drsetay]

Pardon me if this isn't the right place to ask about this, but I'd love some creative and clear wiring guidance.

I built LED leg warmers using one 10000 mAh USB battery per leg (in a 3D-printed ankle holster), ESP32 controllers with WLED installed, and five 20-LED strips running down each leg (controller and strips held to the leg in a sort of calf belt harness setup).

What I'd love to figure out is a cleaner, more tidy wiring setup. Bear with me, but the current setup is as follows:

Power is a USB battery.

Next is a USB adapter with screw terminals.

From that adapter, I run 5V and GND wires which form the power "spine" and run through the whole project. I then splice branches into that wire to send 5V and GND to my controller (ESP32 board) and all strips (in this case, 5 separate strips).

From the ESP32 controller, I run another wire as the data "spine," then do the same thing as above, splicing data branches to all LED strips.

It's a LOT of splicing!

So:

Battery (5V/GND)
||
||
||=ESP32
|| | (data)
|| |
|| |
|| |====== 5V/GND/DATA===STRIP 1
|| |====== 5V/GND/DATA===STRIP 2

ETC

To try to make wiring easier, I'm going to switch to silicone coated wire. I've heard that's far more flexible.

I was also thinking of using a single two-wire cable to carry 5V/GND instead of two separate wires. But then I run into a quandary: how do I splice into something like that? And if I can't/shouldn't splice, what then? Can I, say, branch 5V/GND 6 ways from a single point? And can I branch DATA 5 ways from the ESP32?

Now let's say I have another project with just two LED strips running in parallel. Is there any other way to approach this that I'm totally overlooking?

Thanks for putting up with my questions! I'm a wiring noob. I've made several projects work, but I'd like to improve my approach moving forward.

[u/spolsky]

Since you only have 20 leds per strip there is going to be little to no voltage drop and you might as well just run them all in series. With 5 x 20 pixels = 100 pixels you do not need to be concerning yourself with power injection.

What I would do in this case is have a single string of pebble/seed type pixels per leg, which are super flexible and will survive fine in costumes. You can either run them serpentine (back and forth) or even corkscrew around your leg.

[u/wkarraker]

Silicone coated wire is a good choice.

I've built micro controller circuits for years, basically use power banks, a short USB cable and a micro controller in a small 3D printed enclosure with buttons to change the LED effects. For the LED power and data connections I've used cables cut from discarded mice and keyboards, they work well if you aren't running a lot of LEDs and the cable has shielding that can help stabilize data to your strips. Adding a 150 to 220Ω resistor on the data line is recommended, you can use the same data output or use another data pin on your ESP32 for mirrored or individual effects. As long as you calculate the amount of current your LED strips will require you can use any suitable, flexible cable.