When I first built this project, I tried putting the controller off to the side and connected via an ethernet cable (using 6 of the 8 conductors). This was causing some data corruption in some of the segments. So I moved the controller into the bottom node.
I used the ESP32 module linked from the original project (Chromance Project)
(ESP32 Board), but I put the whole thing on an ESP32 Dev Board, which you can also get from Ali-Express for much cheaper if you have time to wait. I drilled three holes in the board in a spot with zero traces and mounted the 2.1mm barrel jack and wired it over into the GND and +5V pins on the underside.
The author remixed this model.
Added mounting box for ESP32 DEV board