I’ve been thinking about using a small battery pack to drive some LEDs (pixels ?) on a Christmas costume.
It could also be used to power a small display element where running power wires would be inconvenient.
So, after trawling eBay for 15 mins, I settled on these two items:
This unit (bought on eBay) takes two 18650 Li-ion cells.
The output is 5V DC and is rated for 1.5A.
That should be enough to run some pixel strip or a small pixel string.
It’s not obvious at first, but the case halves slide apart.
Luckily the 4 little hook tabs didn’t break when I prised the case apart – doh!
Hmmm… the stiff wire for the battery negative terminals is damn close to the cut-out in the positive tabs.
I think I’ll bend that a little or slip a piece of plastic tubing over that bit.
I also bought a pair of these 18650 cells that are rated at 3000mAh.
When the cells arrived, I charged the bank up and then used it to charge my phone as a test. I haven’t checked the capacity but it seems useful so far.
The LED shows red when it’s charging and blue when it’s supplying current.
When disconnected, you can just see a very faint flicker of the blue LED in a completely darkened room.