Little Bird
LED SHIM
The LED SHIM is a slim bar of 28 RGB LED pixels that slips directly onto your Raspberry Pi's GPIO pins — no soldering required. Its friction-fit header provi...
The LED SHIM is a slim bar of 28 RGB LED pixels that slips directly onto your Raspberry Pi's GPIO pins — no soldering required. Its friction-fit header provides a secure connection, and at just 0.8 mm thick, it can be used alongside HATs and pHATs without interference, peeking out visibly at the top of the board.
Driven by the IS31FL3731 LED matrix driver chip, LED SHIM provides individual control of all 28 pixels with full RGB colour mixing. A Python library with one-line installer and example scripts makes it easy to get started.
Key Features
- 28 RGB LED Pixels – Single-row bar with individually addressable LEDs
- No Soldering Required – Friction-fit header slips onto Pi GPIO pins
- Ultra-Slim – 0.8 mm thick PCB, compatible with stacked HATs and pHATs
- IS31FL3731 Driver – Hardware LED matrix driver for smooth, flicker-free control
- Python Library – One-line installer with example scripts included
curl https://get.pimoroni.com/ledshim | bashIdeal For
- Status indicators and notification bars
- VU meters and audio visualisation
- Sensor reading bar graphs
- Ambient lighting and mood displays
Compatibility
- Raspberry Pi 3B+, 3, 2, B+, A+, Zero, and Zero W
Resources
Jargon buster
Plain-language definitions for the technical terms used above.
- GPIO
- General-purpose input/output pins are microcontroller pins you can set in software to read signals, switch devices on and off, or connect to peripherals. The number of GPIO pins matters because it limits how many buttons, LEDs, sensors, and other parts you can wire directly to the board.
- LED
- A light-emitting diode is a small electronic component that lights up when current flows through it in the correct direction. In this kit, LEDs create the flashing effect, so polarity and correct soldering matter for the project to work.
- PCB
- A printed circuit board is a rigid board with copper tracks that connect electronic parts without loose wires. For this kit, the PCBs also form the airplane shape, so they are both the circuit base and part of the finished model.
- RGB
- Short for red, green and blue, usually referring to an LED that can mix those three colours. It matters because controlling an RGB LED teaches how separate outputs combine to create different colours.
Find this product in
Brands
Raspberry Pi
Related Tutorials
Free guides on learn.littlebird.com.au
