| Type | Draw/meter | When it wins |
|---|---|---|
| Single-color strip | ~0.4 A | Cheap glow, long runtimes, one hue is enough |
| Analog RGB | ~0.6 A | Whole-strip color changes; simplest wiring |
| Addressable (NeoPixel) | ~1 A at white | Patterns, gradients, per-pixel motion — the wow tier |
Hours = mAh ÷ mA-draw. A 10,000 mAh bank feeding a 1 A build is ~7 honest hours with inefficiency margin; plan dimmed presets at 30–50% and double the number you got. USB power banks are the friendliest; LiPo packs are the lightest; both want a switch.
8–10 mm of something translucent between LED and eye: ping-pong halves, silicone, frosted acrylic. Double-diffuse for faces. Strip laid INSIDE a channel (foam U-channel is free) reads as clean line rather than dotted string.
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Tail of the strip dims | Voltage drop | Inject power at the far end too |
| Random glitching | Data wire too long or unshielded | Shorten/ground the data run; resistor on the data pin |
| Battery dies by 7 pm | Full-white plan | The preset discipline + bigger bank |