How to wire DotStar LED strip with 6 wires at the start of the strip

Question

I bought some of these LEDs:

They have six wires at the start of the LED strip. I thought that perhaps the separate red and black wires were to power the LEDs, and that, for the 4 wire JST, the black would go to ground, and the other 3 would be red, green, and blue controls.

But Adafruit's DotStar tutorial only shows how to wire a 4 wire led strip.

I don't want to burn these out, so I'm trying to get a better understanding of how to do this properly. I can't seem to find any reference photos online for this 6 wire configuration.

Answer 1

Looks like the power and ground (red and black) connections are duplicated. You want to connect the strings in series by plugging the male and female connectors together so that the data lines run all in series, but as the guide points out, you will have a significant voltage drop if you rely on those connections alone or power, so you need to parallel the additional power connections to the supply to maintain brightness with a long chain. If you've only got a single section, you won't need to use the additional connections.