Some random notes on how the Technocolour Dreamcoat fared at Burning Man, and some traps to avoid: http://frabjousdei.net/post/97229300221/technocolour-dreamcoat-burning-man-2014
Good to hear some notes on the limefuels. After hearing about them, I was thinking about having them power my next wearable project, but after reading, your experiences, perhaps not. I had my LED suit and pants running on 2 separate arduinos which each had one of these: http://www.adafruit.com/products/353
the arduino was powered using a simple step up, and the LEDs were powered with the nominal lipo voltage…My animations lasted all night on 1/2 max brightness (at least 6 hours), and at no point did I have the batteries run out of juice. I had far less LEDs though (226 on the suit, 144 on the pants). I’m hoping to do a write up when I get the chance.
I got a tiny video of it in action: http://youtu.be/R5hZBnNe0G8
Oh, interesting @Ryan_Clough . I’m going to keep pursuing the “safe” and easy option of the prepackaged batteries until I can’t anymore, but I might have to eventually give up.
Oh awesome @Mark_Kriegsman , thanks! Will link it up…
Well those adafruit batteries have overdraw protection. The downside is you’re responsible for stepping up the voltage if needed to 5v. My step up converter only had maybe 200 ma current maximum, which was fine for the arduino
There’s all sorts of dire warnings about charging them though.
Thinking about it, for the same brightness the LEDs are going to draw 27% more current at 3.7V than they would from the 5V Limefuel. If you discount the suggested 6A continuous draw rate by 27%, you get 4.4A or so, which isn’t that much more than the Limefuel. But you can still “burst” to 13A as per the spec, and the LEDs’ draw is pretty bursty so that might be a good match.
ive had zero issues with any of my rechargable usb batteries but like Ryan, i used far less leds… i think ive only hit a use of 150 or so leds. ive never done the math on the power though.
0.06 per LED * 150 = 9A and I reckon on about a third of that for typical rainbow patterns. Easy stuff :-).