After buying the pico v3 Ive spent the past two weeks Reading articles watching videos and following bunch of posts on here just trying different things and nothing is working.
I am extremely new and would love advice on an actual specific LED strip and wireless battery pack to use with the V3 pico. (web links would be highly appreciated)
Since I am completely clueless at this point it would be awesome if you could send me links to a compatible led strip + battery power which I would be able to solder the pico onto.
To help recommend stuff, how long of a strip do you need, and how many hours of average use do you need your battery to last? Have you thought about whether the 30 LEDs / meter strip works, or you need the denser 60/m?
Knowing the application can help a bit too, like “costume” or “vertical bike beacon”.
Thanks for asking @jeff so I’m currently sketching out an infinity mirror totem, main compartment is a clear tube that is 20" tall and 3" in diameter. I’m hoping it could be used both as a bike beacon and or a totem. Hoping to get like 3 vertical lines attached to the inside of the pipe to create the effect, so around 60 inches worth of LED strips would be ideal. 30 LEDs per meter would work, 60 would probably look nicer, but mainly the battery pack being able to power it for about 8 hours if possible, including the pico v3. All of this is totally flexible btw, really just want to write some JavaScript and mess with the code and also super excited to get into the LED world. Thanks again for your help! (haha also somehow I have 2 accounts on here apparently)
Here is a article with a bit about powering with lithium. An easier option is to get a battery pack with built in usb power. The issue comes when you reach a certain amount of power draw (amps).
I run one of these 12-24v stepdown to 5v motorcycle style stepdowns. https://amzn.to/3NDYpMk
With a 6s lipo I used on a drone. With a cell monitor to monitor the lipo voltage. If I was new to this I’d want myself using a protected lipo. So I don’t drain it down to low or a 12v AGM battery to simplify it more.
I’ve done what you are doing. I have about 300 LEDs (60 per meter) and run it off of an Anker Powercore 26800 battery. Be careful with those off brand batteries as they flat out lie about their capacity. That battery will power 300 LEDs for 8 hours no problem. Trust me that you will want to run it at 75% brightness or you will blind people around you when it is dark in a festival setting. Even if it was at 100% brightness, patterns use on average around 60% of the LED power rating (depending on the pattern), unless your idea of a cool totem is 100% blinding white light lol. A single color red, blue, or green only consume 33.3% of the total draw rated for the LED strip.