What I mean is, I want to drive them with an MSP430 (specifically the MSP430G2553 - 16Mhz / 16Kb). How do I know which chips are better suited? How do I calculate how many of them I can run and how fast? I tried to read and understabd the chinglish data sheets but it all comes out as gibberish.
Well the RAM is the main limitation, the software implementation also of course.
Don't worry you can easily go over 1000 chips per channel on small MCUs with the WS2812.
When the refresh rate is 30fps, low speedmodelc ascade number are not less than 512 points, high speed mode not less than1024 points. Send data at speeds of up to 400 Kbps and 800
Kbps two patterns
Can the MSP430 even address these chips? How fast? How do I translate 16Mhz into Frames per second x String of LED chips I can program?
You need, well, you have to use DMA (in conjunctions with timers/pwm signals), if you don't use DMAs to generated the datastream, the MCU will only be able to generate the signal and nothing else, otherwise he won't fulfill the timings restrictions.
EDIT:The differences between WS2812 & WS2822S (WS2821 driver IC) are:
- different communication protocol
- WS2822S supports "only" 1024 chips max per channel
- WS2822S strings are more reliable since those LEDs are connected in // (if one LED fails, the chain isn't broken)
- WS2822S needs more external components (resistors)
- WS2822S has 6 pins vs 4 pins for the WS2812, but is not as thick (1.6mm vs 2.0mm).
No data found about brightness.