LDP8806 addressable light strip battery power

[richardf]

Question: What battery to use to drive a light strip?

At all LED's on, I get around 5.5 amps of draw on the 5 volts. Chasing a single light around reduces this to about 30 milliamps so I find I can get some pretty expressive displays for relatively little power if desired.

I also have a Pro-Mini 5volt and an Xbee series 2 assigned to each reel.

Scenerio 1. 4.5 volts (e.g., three series D cells)

Pros:
I find the reels cut out at 4 volts so each battery can loose voltage.
Overvoltage is not an issue.
Cons:
D cells store relatively little power.

Scenerio 2. 6 volts

Pro's
Big selection of sealed lead acid batteries

Con's
Overvoltage A fully charged 6 volt battery would exceed the maximum 6 volts and potentially destroy or stress over time the reel and/or the Pro-Mini and Xbee.
Even the low drop out regulators have trouble at 6.0 volts trying to get 5 volts so it is difficult to regulate to 5 volts.

thanks,

Richard

[adafruit_support_bill]

How about 4x NiMH cells (4.8v). 'D' sized NiMHs are not common, but the 'C' cells have decent capacity and the discharge curve is pretty flat out to the end.