I today saw some decorative battery replacements as a stand in. So here is the dumb question. Whats the smallest battery you would suggest running a proffie off of in a non bladed/ blade plug configuration. AKA 15 to 40 neos. as accent lights and the connector lights.
fun idea… dummy battery shell to adapt a small battery like say a 14500 or something. where as you get more details for like a removed chassis display or cosplay without blades. Of cousre you dont want to store batts long term and you should use a full size battery for all day fun. even without blades.
When it comes right down to it, there are two things that limit the size of the battery:
maximum current draw
average current draw (runtime)
For the maximum current draw, the battery has to be able to produce 30mA per neopixel (if they are 5050 pixels), plus about ~2A for the board itself. So 40 pixels would require ~4.4A peak current.
The average current draw depends heavily on how the board is configured, how loud it’s playing sound, and what colors are in use. Somewhere around 1/3rd of the peak current might be a reasonable estimate though, so maybe 1.5A for 40 neopixels. So if you have a 1000mAh battery, it would run 40 neopixels for maybe 40 minutes or so, less if you use white colors a lot.
Please note, these numbers are crude approximations, actually measuring will yield much better results.