quick question would a 6v lipo battery work for the 5v lights without burning them out??? i have good access to good 6v batteries lol
No, anything beyond 5v will kill your pixels. You could make it work through.
with 10 ah idk if i could make it last all night tho
You might be able to find something at a rc store. Why did you not use 12v lights would have made your project easy.
i ordered a bunch of ws chipped 12v lights and they sent me analog rgb lights instead so @Michael_Sharnet was nice enough to send me some of his cuz i have a light competition this friday
Oh yeah I remember now. You could wire some leds before the lights which would eat up of the voltage. Prob would just take 1 red led if I’m not mistaken.
The pixels don’t like over voltage and my experience anything over 5.1v makes them unstable and going higher will burnout the chip. Also Lipo outputs batteries are rated 3.7v nominal per cell. A 2s lipo gives 7.4v nominal and 8.4v when fully charged. But you might try a 1s single cell 3.7v LIPO. when fully charged the LIPO gives out 4.2v. The problem I run into is finding a store that stocks a 1s lipo hardcase battery with at least enough power to run the LEDs for 20 mins means you want at least a 4000mAh battery. And make sure to get a lipo charger - the risk of fire in LIPO is real if charged wrong or discharged below 3.0v.
Depends on the IC really. The old WS2801 claims a 6V max (and I have driven my 2 meter strips at 6V without any problems.) The WS2812b claims a 7V max. LPD8803 claims 8V. All of those numbers were taken directly from their datasheets.
@Brett_Hansen I just thought of something that might help. The radio and other control devices in remote controlled vehicles usually run at 5v DC and that power is often provided by a BEC (Battery eliminator circuit). Sometimes the BEC is part of the Electronic speed controller (ESC) but some models need a separate BEC. You might find one at a local hobby shop. Also there are different amp ratings for BECs. 3amps is typical and 5 amps is about the highest. The best thing is the bec is designed to regulate voltage.
Can’t you buy a voltage regulator at Radio Shack or something?
In the 1980’s and 90’s I would have said yes the Shack might be able to help. Now a days Radio Shack has lost touch with its roots (at least in Houston and my home town Pleasanton, CA). To control 300 5v LEDs at max power is 18 amps.
I just ran 120 ws2811’s 5v on the demo code for 4 hours on 3 AA batteries in an el cheapo 20c battery holder. Volts went from about 4.5v to about 2.9v and was still going strong when I switched it off.
@trenton_carr That is great to know for those looking to make wearable and portable stuff.
Keep in mind that the demo code is very low power to begin with. A single LED chase and a fade. Once you create whatever pattern you want to use, test that, let it run and see what you get out of it. That said, I ran two strings of 10 pixels each (spread 3-4" apart) on a single AVR with four AA batteries, running various color patterns, flashes and chases that used all colors for over 12 hours before I turned it off … no parade takes that long. 
Perhaps I have some other demo code. It has rainbow chase, full spectrum fades etc. After four hours the sequence that drew the most power was full bright white to yellow fades, volts went from 2.9v to 3.2v
@trenton_carr Since I am basically new to programming, LEDs, and Arduino, I would really like to see (and learn) from you demo code.
@Michael_Sharnet I’m using the code from this fellow, http://funkboxing.com/wordpress/?p=2154 good luck.