So power consumption has always been a challenge for me to understand.

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So power consumption has always been a challenge for me to understand. I’m currently making a new Top Hat with 6 strips of LEDS, 94 pixels each. I’m running it from a Bluefruit Feather and the strips are drawing more power than the controller allows (I think).

I have the brightness set to about 30% and even still it draws on average around .50A but I’ve seen it go as high as .75A. When I have the controlled powered via the USB port, it goes thru a couple of the phases but then resets itself. Via the 2400mAh lipoly battery, it doesn’t reset but I’m afraid its pulling more amps than the battery likes and I don’t want to start a fire inside my hat.

I have 2 Tenergy 3.7V 5500mAh batteries with continuous discharge of 1100mA, which should be more than sufficient (I think). I was thinking about using those but I’m unsure how I should connect them to the strips and/or controller. I’ve never had to use 2 batteries on a single project before. And I think there’s issues with connecting these types of batteries in parallel vs series.

Again, appreciate some advice!
TIM

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you got 6x94 = 564 LEDs?
Your average is 500mA that means 1mA per LED?
I have the feeling you got much higher peaks than 1A.
5V Powerbanks have mostly 1C on charge and around 2C on discharge. In other words: A 2400mAh can be charged and discharged with 2400mA and discharged with 4800mA.

Your Tenergy can be discharged with 11,000mA (not 1100mA). However you got only a Voltage of 3.3 - 4.2V. That’s not enough for the LEDs. You have to connect the cells in series for a voltage range of 6.6-8.4V - - and “burn” the excess voltage to 5V either with Step-Down Converters or LM7805.
Then there is the issue with charging and balancing the two cells; all to much hazzle.

To make a long story short: Stick with the 5V PowerBanks and look especially for ones with high output rating. Double check the one you have on the output (RTFM :).

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Thank you for the info, I definitely need to learn more about this. Considering this is a wearable project I need to watch the size and weight of the batteries I’m using too.