Ahaa ok that great to know, would it be much work to modify your plugin to use I2C instead? i dont understand it.
It would not be possible, unfortunately. The WS281x LEDs require specific timing, which i2c can't do. To my knowledge, I2C allows you to connect multiple devices/sensors etc. to the same pins, and the data can be passed to the right one, but this is not compatible with WS281x since they require constant data, at specific timings.
I have looked into the possibility of making a plugin that would support WLED, so you could do it wirelessly using an ESP8266. I bought the hardware, but that's as far as it got. We're talking long term goals here, since I have quite a few other things on my list.
You might be able to do it yourself, using the webhooks plugin, or MQTT plugins to manually configure it.
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And is it definately not possible to send the data stream through the USB controller do you know?
What kind of LEDs do you have?
I think it would be extremely unlikely, without an extra box (Pi > box > LEDs) since USB would not be able to produce the signal for WS281x leds.
i picked up a couple of WS2812 rings also and a 5v10a PSU.
The plan was to install these then came across the hyperpixel lol
I thought about using a 2nd Pi with octo taking data from J19 straight off the Einsy for the data but then that disables the USB on the Einsy...
I've no issues using a board inbetween BTW
Yeah, I just don't know of any 
You might be able to find some somewhere on the internet. It is not possible to go direct, (ie, wire WS2812 data to USB data), but someone might have made something.
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What about Ethernet / network controller?
Charlie, would something like this work/
My first impression is no, since it is i2c rather than a single dedicated GPIO pin - since the hyper pixel uses all of the GPIO pins. I don't know enough about how that works, I only know that the WS281x LEDs need a constant flow of precise data, which is not available with many things outside of the hardware built in to microcontrollers or the raspberry pi's GPIO pins.
Am i the only person wanting LED that has a hyperpixel, surely not? Nobody else got a solution for this??
The fadecandy is an easy to use USB-based WS2811 controller:
Damn it, gutted.... Thought it was a breakthru.
I have the RGBW https://www.adafruit.com/product/2848
but it only does RGB at the moment 
would this do it if i use a buck converter? https://www.adafruit.com/product/2264
Sounds crazy but can I send the data out by Wi-Fi or Ethernet to a zero W or another pi 3 or 4?
If you want to write the code, then yes! That's also what WLED & and ESP8266 (that I linked earlier) and with a combination of MQTT or webhooks plugin you could get it connected to OctoPrint. If I were you, that would be where I would look into.
With most of your solutions (breakout boards, wifi, USB etc. ) they are all technically possible, but then someone has to write the code to make it work (especially if you want it to work with OctoPrint), and test it. And that means they need to have the hardware too to develop against. So it is not impossible, it is fully possible but if no one has done it before (or, shall I say, published their solution) then you will have to do it yourself.
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No. But you can use any small Arduino-like board, like an Adafruit trinket to control the neopixels. You would have to write some software to be able to tell that Arduino-like board what to do.
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If your goal is to turn on some LEDs, check out the BrightPi kit from PiSupply (https://github.com/PiSupply/Bright-Pi). It is hooked up to pins 2 - 5 but following the instructions allready posted by Charlie Powell you should be able to connect it to I2C-3 instead.
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Somebody just sent this to me, what do you think?
I don't think that does RGBW either.
Low and behold there’s an RGBW branch 