Lightweight Powerful Batteries

[Msmith419]

Hey folks,
My latest and greatest project involves something that I think is pretty nifty! I'm taking an Arduino Micro, pairing it with one of the lovely 3D accelerometers (+/- 3g), tossing it all under a frisbee with some LEDs and having some fun! The idea is that as you throw the frisbee, the acceleration of the disk paired with the movement in the air will cause LED to change color. I haven't decided yet which LEDs I want to use (these ones here: http://www.adafruit.com/products/1312 or a 3W RGB emitter I have kicking around) and that's where my problem lies.

I need a lightweight battery to power the arduino AND the LEDs. From poking around this site, I found a LiPo batterie that could power my LEDs for ~1 hour on a charge if the LEDs were on constantly. The problem is, the battery is 3.7v 1300 mAh and already weighs in at 25g! The battery is powerful enough to run the LEDs, but falls short when it comes to running the arduino. I could place two batteries in series, but that runs my weight up to 50g before you add in the 10g from the other components.

I see two options, but I am open to ideas. 1. Use the 3.7v battery with some kind of boost converter on it to up the voltage to 5v (barely enough to run the board). 2. Use a series of 4 smaller 3.7v batteries at 150 mAh for a much shorter run-time, but lighter weight and by series and paralleling them, getting the voltage up to 7.4v. Let me know what you think! I look forward to hearing from you guys.

For you non-frisbee players, disc weight matters. A standard ultimate disc (my blank slate) weighs in at 175g. A "heavy" disc weighs in at 200g and is meant for windy-days. by drilling holes for LEDs in the sides, I might be able to lose 10g or so, but not enough to make up for the huge battery weight.

[Franklin97355]

Seems like there are several 3.3v arduino clones and the 328 chip will run at 8mhz with 3.3v.

[adafruit_support_bill]

Have a look at the Flora. It runs on 3.3v, and weighs about 4.5g (about the same as the micro). And it is even the right shape!

[alexboy]

Good day,

Don`t wanna to make new discusiions on that kind of question. Kidnly ask you to help me out. I have following RGB LED pixels strand:http://www.adafruit.com/products/683 + Arduino UNO + VR device http://www.ebay.com/itm/Voice-Recogniti ... 20bd30714f
I`am gonna use 8xAA ZnC batteries for LED supply + 3xAA Alkaline batteries for Arduino & VR module.
As per my calculations minimaly work time must be: 1.3h

I`am i right? Must i use antoher kind of batteries? For begininng 1 h workin time - will be enough.

Looking forwad

Thanks with regards,

[adafruit_support_bill]

@alexboy - That is unrelated to the topic of this thread. Please start a new thread for your question.

[Msmith419]

Thanks ada-fruit bill! I didn't like the size of the Flora at first, but I think that looks like a pretty good option, especially since it has the connector for the battery built in. On a related note, does anyone have any ideas about how to attach the stuff? I was thinking super-glue, but that just seems so...permanent.

[adafruit_support_bill]

The Flora is also thinner than the micro and doesn't have the ICSP pins sticking up (that could be painful on a tip!)
Not much sticks well to polyethylene. Super glue would probably pop right off on the first toss. I'd try double-sided foam tape.

[Msmith419]

Double sided-foam tape sounds like a good idea. If I had gotten the micro, I was planning on carefully removing the ICSP headers. Thanks for your help bill! I'll take some pics of the project, throw together an instructible and post it here when I'm finished.