Using a trinket 5v and Arduino 1.0.5 (from adafruit) and a tm1804 strip of

um, the only thing i can think of is the Atmega fuse settings. That would futz with your timing.

It might be a thing, I’m tired but this felt a bit ambiguous:

https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-trinket/16mhz-vs-8mhz-clock

Thanks everyone. I ordered some neopixels and a new trinket. Should be here tomorrow so I can start over fresh.