ESP32 NEOPIXEL Newbie questions - help please

[nikodemd]

Hi everyone!

I am working on my first project and I would like to build a "screen" from 8 NEOPIXEL strips. In fact, I have already built one with the more dense strips, and it didn't work :( therefore, I would really appreciate some help with the following questions:

1. How thick should be the RED 5V and BLACK GROUND wire in the sketch? In my first attempt, I used a thick cable which was a pain in my as*holes to solder to the LED strips. In fact, I think I damaged the neopixel strips in the process and that's why it didn't work later (enclosed is a picture of one of the damaged strips and the cable size I used). Therefore this time I am trying a less dense version of the Neopixel strip with bigger soldering copper areas to work with :)
2. I have plugged in my (new) strip before cutting it into Arduino, and it does not have enough memory to run all LED's with the "noise" sketch. Therefore I bought some ESP32, but I read that the DATA is in 3,3V. Do I need to buy this 3,3v - 5v signal converter?
3. Do I need some resistors here? Is my sketch legit?
4. In the grand schematic of things I would like to use temperature and sound sensors to alter the perlin noise code. Do I need to buy some extra stuff or just the sensors are fine?

I will appreciate any help and feedback!

Best regards,
Niko