China offers much opportunity to try things : short time to market, low price, possibility for anybody to order directly to factories in small quantities.

Last week I ordered some leds for a project. Of course I hade the usual "manager saying a product is not in stock but finally found a sales representative saying that they have 2000 in stock", I got the "product w esent you is the same as the one you bought, just small difference" (yes, the functionality is the same, I'm glad that I hade not started to manufacture the case already :). And no, the problem is not on the product that was/was not in stock)

But this one is new to me :

-Can you tell me what is the pinout for the jst connector ? -there is no pinout -I mean : which wire is the data, which is clock, and which is ground ? sorry, i do not know -please try it first

This conversation was with the owner of a small manufacture, not with some salesman of an export company. Thank you china for making this world a little less real. And thank you so much for all that leds that I could never afford if they came from europe with documented pinout.

EDIT : after 2 hours struggling with the code, trying to find why the leds where still all shut down (was it in the code or in the pinout ?), I took my scalpel, cut the silicone around the leds that protect them to fin the pinout using a multimeter and the datasheet of the WS2801). Well, I did not even need my multimeter : on the PCB, the "input" and "output" side were not what made sense to me...

EDIT 2 : now that I manage to have the WS2801 working, I wanted to give a try to those brand new WS2812B which would allow me to test a design that was not possible with the old WS2812. Guess what ? They sent me WS2812 instead of WS2812B............................................... I'm sure they'll be happy to send me the proper product via china post. 4 to 6 weeks from now I should receive them...