Neopixel blade build being troublesome.

I built my first hilt and decided to make my own led blade. The hilt went really well and works with other neopixel blades. But for some reason I can't get the one I built to function properly. It only lights up the first few leds and they are all white except for the last one lit is yellowish.

These are the leds I used. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CDTEHRC...ing=UTF8&psc=1

Things I've tried:
Replacing resistor
Swapping to larger Guage wire
Trimming from 144 leds down to 130 leds
I ordered a new pcb with the resistor already installed. I'm currently waiting on that.

I have been using exclusively BTF leds for about 5 years now, and have used thousands of their LEDS (my work bench alone features over 2000 pixels), so I don't think the quality is the issue.

Generally this sort of behavior indicates a damaged LED or strip. The resistor isn't 100% necessary, especially for typical lightsaber installs. The resistor is for signal integrity, but the issue is generally an issue for longer signal lines.

Make sure your LEDs are in the correct direction.

Try connecting your signal to the next LED pad up, or after the last LED that seems to be working. Connect your power wires to different pads from your signal line, it doesn't matter where the power lines are connected, this just helps reduce shorting and it is easier to solder that way. If you attach the wires to the second set of pads it helps to have bigger connection points since the first pad is usually cut.

Thanks for the reply! I'm currently at work but I'm looking forward to getting back to it.

Alright so bypassed everything and connected directly from the board to each of the 2 strips and all leds seem to light up properly. I'm going to wire up the new pcb and see what happens

New pcb installed and it works now! I think I may have mixed the wiring up. I'm not entirely sure but it works now so that's cool!

Great, enjoy it in good health.