Neopixel Capacitor Question

[emiskilla03]

I'm working in a project that consists of 4-7 individual breadboard neopixels. I know for my strip I use a capacitor to keep from burning out the first led. However , I thought I'd read that the breadboard friendly had on on board capacitors. However I've seemed to have burned out my first pixel in my chain of four. So I'm guessing I need to add a capacitor. I'm using a trinket to run my project and it and the neopixels will be powers with the power supply suggested when I purchased my trinket. Thoughts on this is greatly appreciated!

[davidl13]

Ah! There are two different capacitors with two different purposes. The smaller capacitor on the boards/strips/etc. is a "bypass" capacitor (0.1uF is a common value) and is intended to reduce high-frequency switching noise from the circuit (in this case, a pixel) from being coupled into the power circuit. The larger cap (mentioned in the uberguide and oft discussed here) is intended to reduce a voltage spike that can occur when some mains-connected power supplies are first powered. That kind of voltage spike can kill pretty much anything, especially WS2812x's so the large-value cap is intended to help mitigate that problem.