3 Neopixels 144 LED strips on a costume.

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Ryuudan
 
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3 Neopixels 144 LED strips on a costume.

Post by Ryuudan »

Hey, I'm kinda new to Arduino and all, but I'm a cosplayer and intend to do a costume with the neopixel 144 led strip.

I will need more than 1 strip in my costume not sure if 2 meters will do or will I need a 3rd strip.

So, my question is: How can I power this up and which arduino should I use?

I will use also an accelerometer and a push button to switch between animations and colors. Will control 2 or 4 coolers from the arduino so I could adjust the speed of the fans.
From what I read in the description of Flora and GEMMA and even trinket, they don't have enough memory to use with 3 meters of this strip (432 leds), but I could not understand the memory requirements to control this many things.

So please help me in this project. I have untill end of may to finish all the electronic parts of the costume. I plan to buy everything from adafruit as well (if you ship to japan that is)

thank you very much.

as for the details
I wish for the LEDs switch from 4-6 animations by pressing the button and zapping through them.
from the same button the last option would be the animation controlled by the accelerometer(s) that would unleash 2 or 3 other animations according to the movement.
for the coolers, I still don't know if they will be necessary. I could control them with only a switch or with a potentiometer to control their speed. or I could put a thermometer and make them automatic.

thats about everything I need in this project.

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: 3 Neopixels 144 LED strips on a costume.

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

You need 3 bytes of SRAM for each pixel. Depending on the complexity of the rest of your code, the Flora could probably drive that many.

The big issue I think will be power. These 144 pixel strips draw a lot of current. Worst-case (all pixels on full white) they will need close to 8A each strip. Most patterns will use considerably less than that. You need to think about what kinds of patterns you expect to run (on average - how many pixels on at a time and how bright). You also need to decide is how long your run-time needs to be. These two factors will determine the battery capacity you will require.

Ryuudan
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Nov 10, 2013 4:47 am

Re: 3 Neopixels 144 LED strips on a costume.

Post by Ryuudan »

Thank you for the swift answer.
So flora can manage it. Im glad.

A s for brightness, i will make them all go as bright as they can for short periods of time moving from green to yellow but will not use the white. And of course there will be much less power demanding animations.

The runtime is not a big issue as I will be demonstrating this from time to time and not on all the time. Im thinking about 1-2hours will be enough for a day. I did think about RC LiPo batteries as they can provide 20-50A current and can have as much mAh as i need.
Something like this http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__ ... Cell_.html
5000mAh 40C
I can even use 3-4 of these cells to have as much as 20Ah but I doubt will be necessary
Or i can carrry 2 or 3 of these and just change them as soon as they run out
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__ ... _Pack.html

Do adafruit sell any battery powerful enough for this?

I would prefer to use something like this
http://www.adafruit.com/products/1566

But 2A may be too little.

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: 3 Neopixels 144 LED strips on a costume.

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

Full brightness Yellow would be about 5.76 amps per strip (17.28 A for 3)
Full brightness Green would be about 2.66 amps per strip (8.64 A for 3)

If you were to use 2 of these: http://www.adafruit.com/products/353 You could run at full-brightness green for about 1 1/2 hours.

Note that 3.7v packs such as that one and the Turnigy ones you linked would be slightly less bright than a 5v pack. The problem is that there are no "native" 5v packs. The one you linked earlier: http://www.adafruit.com/products/1566 is really a 3.7v pack with an internal boost converter. That limits its output capacity and reduces its efficiency somewhat.

I recommend that you read through this guide: http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neop ... uide/power

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