FULL LED SUITE FOR MOVIEMAKING

[Joakim]

Hey, I need your expertise.

Me and my friends want to do a LED suite using LED stripes powered by some kind of portable battery.

We are thinking about attaching LED-stripes around our arms, chest, stomach and legs. How should we connect the LED stripes and what type of battery should we use? Is it even possible to power it?

We expect using ~50meters of LED stripes


Look at these jackets - we want something looking like these:

Thanks
J

 

[Richard Burns]

I think you may find that it is difficult to get the effect you see on the clip.
To use LED strips to cover a jacket would give you a series of dots all over the jacket and would need a large battery to power it as the current drawn by LED strips is quite large, (50m of LED strip would likely require a large car battery to power it) it would also be fairly inflexible to move sideways along the length of the strip.
You may find it easier and more comfortable to wear if you were to have a central LED bank that has a series of flexible light pipes or light guides fixed to the jacket to direct the light from the LEDs along the pipes. This would provide a more even light source and would require electrical wiring to only one point and require fewer LEDs.
You would still need a reasonably high powered battery to maintain the light for a long period; a basic sealed lead acid battery is probably the cheapest option but may be quite heavy / risky to wear, a NiMH battery pack would probably be more suitable, ensure you match the voltage to the LEDs you are using and compare the mAh of the battery to the power of the LEDs to get an idea of run time, remembering that you do not want to exhaust the batteries fully.