The first thing that's good to do is to have a look at the datasheet.
http://www.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2812.pdfIt's a bit towards the crap end of the spectrum in terms of relative quality of datasheets from different manufacturers, but still basically usable.
Let's pick out some of the main points of information for safe hardware construction:
- The absolute maximum voltage on Vcc, and Vdd, is 7 volts, but a typical operating environment is 5V.
- Vi, which I assume is the absolute maximum rating of the voltage on the data input, is Vdd + 0.5V, so that should be fine to work with.
- In their example reference schematic, Vdd (the LED power supply rail) is connected to the +5V supply directly, but Vcc (the power supply to the control circuit) is not connected directly to the 5V supply, it's isolated and filtered a bit, derived from the main 5V rail through a 150 ohm resistor and then an 0.1uF cap to ground.
Bulk capacitance at one or two points along the 5V main rail along the LED strip, for a large LED strip, is probably not a bad idea.
I wouldn't expect it to be a particularly delicate chip, no more and no less than any other common digital chip really.
Now, you probably don't have just WS2812 modules by themselves - you probably have some strip or LED board from some other vendor, so just the WS2812 datasheet doesn't give you complete information. So what you probably need to do is track down a datasheet or information on this product from its manufacturer, if possible, so you can see how the WS2812 modules are wired up in a circuit, and what other components are included in that system, to see how you need to interface to that circuit and what you might need to add.
If you look at some of the Adafruit stuff, for example -
http://www.adafruit.com/images/large/1586top_LRG.jpgYou will see they have one capacitor next to every LED module, let's say 100nF, this is good practice. But they've left out the resistor, it looks like they're just tying both power rails straight together.
If there's a problem with your data, timing, software, microcontroller etc, well, it probably won't display the way you want it to - but it won't damage the hardware either.
Also remember an appropriate power budget - assume max. 20mA per LED, so if you've got R+G+B full throttle on all the time (worst case assumption) say 60mA per LED module, so if you've got say 100 modules then your power supply will need to reliably supply 6A at 5V.
and if you're supplying 5V to a 6A load from a 5V power supply and many meters of wire you might need to watch your voltage drop in the wires too. Let's suppose you've got a 6A LED load, a 5V power supply, a 2 meter power cable, and the minimum acceptable voltage for the LED controllers to operate properly is 4.5V. The maximum acceptable cable resistance is 83 milliohms (0.5V / 6A). If the "5V" power supply is not actually well regulated 5V and it's really a little lower than the acceptable resistance will be lower still.
The "round trip" length of a 2 meter cable is 4 meters, so the maximum acceptable cable resistance is about 20 milliohms per meter.
If the wire vendor doesn't provide product data like resistance, you can look up typical estimated values for copper wire if you know the gauge (eg. AWG or whatever other systems are used) and you find that you need at least 18 AWG wire or lower (i.e. thicker wire = lower gauge) to meet the example values I picked above.
Remember that there is also some voltage drop as you go along inside the LED strip itself too, if it's a long one. The internal conductors will not be particularly thick. In some cases connecting power supply cables to both ends of the strip may be a useful technique.
Regards,
Luke