LED controller help and lwclone2u

[BlackDragon2020]

I have been trying to get a LED controller going so that I can use ledblinky or something like it to turn on leds for what buttons to use for MAME.
about me:
I have a uncompleted background in electrical engineering, and its been a long time since i touched a micro controller or code and this was the first time I have played with addressable LED or SMD RBG.

Recently project 1 SPI control of addressable Led VIA ATmega32u4:
I spent a week sorting through the code for a project on https://hackaday.io/project/16395-ledblinky-controls-30x-ws2812-arduino-usb-spi. It was using a arduino Leonardo promicro in SPI mode and LUFA virtual serial demo, hooking ledblinky in via DLL hardware spoof of LEDWiz and running ws2812 leds. after reading the atmel pdf on the ATmega32U4 and learning far more than i had forgoten, I came to the conclusion he set all the ports and pins and all right and the code was good, I stared to look and it seems the ws2812 i got was ws2812B..... as of 2017 the rest/ latch time changed from 50ms to 300ms. I could not isolate the code that was used for sending the rest pulse, even if i could it just seemed to fiddle and over my head to get the timings right via SPI.   If anyone good with coding and timing I think a quick tweak to this code would bring this back to life and modern, but i could be wrong.

Project attempt 2 LEDWIZ clone lwclone2u:
At this point I am a bit burned out, and need to take a small break from the week long grind of the last fail, but I give this one a shot. I just quickly loaded the flash, it was found all was good, but lights dont work. are the transistors needed, the QUICK look i had seemed the breakout board was just for convenience, but now I thinking the transitors maybe need to drive the LEDS can anyone confirm?

looking for an quick and easy way to get me going with what i got, I can upgrade later. currently this is what I have:

1 Arduino uno, 3 Arduino Leonardo pro micro clones, 100 ws2812B aka neopixles , many rolls of 5v and 12 monster led strips RBG 5050 I think they are 4 wire, R B G +.

I only need to light up 14 buttons atm.

Thanks for your help.

Ps. why is the search button not working for me?

[BlackDragon2020]

I have gotten the hackaday project up and running, I will be adding a link in the comments to a new hackaday project to host the changes, I have been unable to get in touch with the project owner, to be allowed to  upload there. they seem to be AFK for years at a time.

so cheap controller for ws2812b/ws2812b for ledblinky. $5 clone of Leonardo can run up to 85 ws2812b with your own power of course.

I am currently trying testing ways to isolate a single minipcb ws2812b and use only one to light a single clear button. ATM using small cardboard box around the button, and wax paper to defuse the light. I may try to come up with something that can be 3d printed.