LED VEST

Power is a challenge on this project. 

Idol current is 600 ma without turning any lights on. 

If they were all turned on the current could be up around the 14 amp mark.

The WS2812 LED's are really bright, and to make it look nice at night I have dialed back the max brightness to 50 out of 255. 

The upside is the plasma animation runs around 2 amps. 

The downside is that the resolution only has 50 steps as opposed to the full 255 steps at full brightness. 

This is making me want to talk to manufacturers to create a chip that uses the full 255 steps, but has a much lower light output for low brightness requirements, such as close range lighting like this vest. 

I have settles on a 12AH 6 Volt Lead Acid battery. 

A problem with this battery is charged voltage is 6.4 volts, which risks damaging the LED's and the Teensy controller. Thus I have installed a high current Diode to reduce the voltage back to the maximum 5.5 volts.