I have been researhing to build an LED top hat with addresable LED Strips
Its going to have roughly 320 Leds using the 60 per meter NeoPixels
I have seen the awesome Hat in the learn section with the scrolling text, the difference with mine is i would like a lot more LEDs and the ability to have them all on for a couple hours or so. The hat im using is much bugger/taller so I dont mind if i need a big Lipo inside to make this happen. I have tons of different Lipos for RC.
I would be super greatful if someone could just get me started in the right direction with a list of parts needed to run about 8 meters of addressable LED Strip.
Heres a pic of what Im shooting for.
Parts List Please
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Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.
- adafruit_support_mike
- Posts: 67485
- Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm
Re: Parts List Please
For 320 pixels, your peak current will be a bit less than 20A.
That's a full-on upper limit though, and for most projects you can scale the expected load down to about 1/3 of the worst-case limit. That's still 7-8A though, so figure about 10,000mAh of energy storage per hour of operating time.
Aside from power concerns, running 320 pixels isn't much different from running 10. Each pixel serves as a signal buffer for the next one, so all your controller really has to do is get a signal to the first one in the strip.
If you want to arrange strips vertically, you'll need to add a bit of wiring to carry signals from one strip to the next, and it will probably be easiest to have the data signals follow a snaking path.. top of strip-1 to top of strip-2, bottom of strip-2 to bottom of strip-3, top of strip-3 to top of strip-4, etc. That will just take a bit of soldering.
That's a full-on upper limit though, and for most projects you can scale the expected load down to about 1/3 of the worst-case limit. That's still 7-8A though, so figure about 10,000mAh of energy storage per hour of operating time.
Aside from power concerns, running 320 pixels isn't much different from running 10. Each pixel serves as a signal buffer for the next one, so all your controller really has to do is get a signal to the first one in the strip.
If you want to arrange strips vertically, you'll need to add a bit of wiring to carry signals from one strip to the next, and it will probably be easiest to have the data signals follow a snaking path.. top of strip-1 to top of strip-2, bottom of strip-2 to bottom of strip-3, top of strip-3 to top of strip-4, etc. That will just take a bit of soldering.
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.