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Thread: Prizm 5.1 Neopixel power question

  1. #1

    Default Prizm 5.1 Neopixel power question

    Hello all, I have a question about neopixel blades using a Prizm 5.1 board, I hope I'm doing this the right way posting this here...

    I'm working on a neopixel build using a Prizm 5.1 (when I can actually get my hands on a board, that is) and I've been reading up and planning it out as much as I can before hand. I would like, if possible, to use 3 neopixel strips wired up together and I'm trying to figure out the power/battery needs for such a build. From what I understand, the Prizm 5.1 can use a single 3.7v 18650 battery, and I'm trying to find one with as much mAh as possible to do this. My question would be can I take two of such batteries and create a dual pack between both of them, wired in parallel to keep the same voltage level, but increased capacity? Or will the board not support this sort of mash-up?

    Would the power consumption for 3 neopixel strips be far too demanding as well? I'm hoping to make it as bright as possible, rigged up in a triangle sort of shape to produce as much light all around and avoid any black lined areas, is this a feasible approach? This will be my first neopixel/strip blade attempt, I've made several in-hilt tri-cree sabers in the past using NB 3 and 4 boards and CF 8's, so I'm just trying to figure out as much as possible as I can for this new approach.

    Thanks for taking the time to read this, hopefully someone with a bit more insight into all this can clear these up for me!

  2. #2

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    Im basing this totally off of guess work for the moment... You could in theory wire one battery to the Prizm and one to the pos side of the NP's and place a diode in between so the Prizm never see the second board (because you would have to couple the batteries for charging) since the negative side is what triggers the LED's, at least for 'normal' LED's.

    At least its a basis for thought.

  3. #3

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    There are 18650's with 15a discharge(which is the important part for having a functional blade), though they do tend to have a lesser capacity than the 3500mah 10a cells.
    Thar also be 26650's out there with upwards of 15a, though obviously they'll only work in a large enough hilt.

    Your main issue with 3 strips is going to be amperage. If you're not hitting the necessary discharge you'll get the evil death sounds noted in a few threads below as the pixels will be trying to eat more than your battery is capable of outputting. mAh alternatively is just run time, which'll be pretty sucky with the 10+ amp 18650's.

    TL;DR Get a nice 26650. Orbtronic and keeppower make good ones.

    As to making a three strip triangle! Yep! Very possible, but use skinny strips, they'll fit better in the diffusion foam. Best practice seems to be to use something rigid to stick each strip to. Dowel would be my first guess. There's also the Intelliblade from Naigon, but he'll be out of stock for another 5 or so weeks apparently. His is a three strip system that's rigid and forms a triangle as an aspect of its design.
    Last edited by RarestSquirrel; 01-28-2018 at 01:39 AM.

  4. #4

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    So for a three strip build using the tcss connectors would you split the positive and negatives for a total of 6 so each pad on the connector has 2? Then again for the negatives on the board?

  5. #5

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    Ok, I actually hadn't considered amperage so far, so that's good to know lol. I looked around at some 26650's just to try and get a good understanding here... one of them had a "Discharge: 20A Max Continuous, Rated 40A Max Pulse by Aspire with a 67 deg F temperature limit" with 4300 mAh.
    Would that or something similar to it be enough to power the strips, board and speaker sufficiently?

    (Edit: I found the orbtronic and keeppower ones that you mentioned, higher capacity there, would definitely go with either of those)

    As far as battery life goes, since I assume it'll be rather small with so much drain going on like you mentioned, could two of these cells be wired up into a pack to double their capacity? PCModulus mentioned his theory above, I was thinking something similar to the li-ion packs available here at TCSS with the cells joined and wrapped up together, though I admit my understanding of how exactly those work together now may be a bit off lol...

    Reading up earlier on batteries, it sounded like taking two cells and wiring their positives to each other and negatives to each other would increase capacity without increasing overall voltage, though that may be an overly simplistic way that I'm looking at it... I also don't want them to blow up or something because I didn't figure it all beforehand lol....

    (Edit 2: have read that this is possible and ok on some sites, others say this is possible but an extremely terrible idea to try on my own, lol)

    That's good to hear that 3 strips is do-able, I'd kind of grown attached to the idea haha. I was planning on attaching them all to strip of foam in the center for impact absorption, I'm sure a dowel would work just fine though too.
    Last edited by cjsiege88; 01-28-2018 at 06:26 AM.

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Squimboos View Post
    So for a three strip build using the tcss connectors would you split the positive and negatives for a total of 6 so each pad on the connector has 2? Then again for the negatives on the board?
    There's 7 pins on the TCSS PCB, 3x POS, 3x Neg, 1x data so I assume you'd run each strip of a separate pad on the blade side, which would connect to separate pins (except for data being shared).

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by adacey View Post
    There's 7 pins on the TCSS PCB, 3x POS, 3x Neg, 1x data so I assume you'd run each strip of a separate pad on the blade side, which would connect to separate pins (except for data being shared).
    7 pins, but still only 3 circuit paths. Just makes wiring 3 strips a whole lot easier if you go 1:1 like you said.

  8. #8

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    I attempted to wire up an Intelliblade using the TCSS connector and I was having some problems with it, used a g16 instead and it worked. I don’t know why, but the TCSS connector was shorting out. Make sure you use heavy gauge ptfe wire like 20ga for the commons or you won’t get full amps.

  9. #9

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    Is that a recent development meatsweats? Very interesting indeed if so. I'm going to try hooking directly in. I am using heavy gauge PTFE wire already, but I get nada through the TCSS connector that works fine on adafruit strips.

    Tom

    "Mistakes are our greatest teacher."

  10. #10

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    when I first got the Intelliblade I first tried the TCSS connector and it was acting odd, like restarting and such. I didn’t have the same problem with the g16. I’ve been having all sorts of problems with the Intelliblade as we’ve talked about, so I’m not sure what is at fault. I’m waiting on some generic strips for a tri strip blade at which point I’ll try the TCSS connector again.

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