These level shifters won’t work out of the box, but replacing the high side resistors for the outputs you use from the original 10K to ~1K will fix that.
The 3A regulator is overkill, but cheap and small so…
I removed the BOOT/RESET buttons from the board so the level shifter sits better. Boards are just held together with sticky foam tape.
Those level shifters are known to be marginal on the switching times for WS281x protocols.
I’m happy you’ve got it working for your setup, but it’s not a device I would recommend in general.
74AHCTxxx devices (and others in the KB: hardware) work well over a large range of devices and match the protocol specs.
Yeah with the stock 10K resistor the rise time was clearly too long, the signal barely got any higher than the input. With the mod it looks reasonable on the scope. Got real shifters on the larger builds.
Personally, I prefer any of the 74AHCTxxx chips, single supply and other than a bypass cap fairly simple to wire. Plus they’re on spec by design. I use the SOIC chips on a DIP adapter board and they become the same size as your shifter board.
I use the SOIC chips on a DIP adapter board and they become the same size as your shifter board.