Hello, I was wondering if I would be able to use a single 5V 15A voltage regulator to power both my raspberry pi and 250 addressable LEDs. It can provide the needed current for the setup, but I was wondering if it would be smarter to use a separate smaller regulator for the Pi supply so that voltage spikes from the lights don’t affect the Pi. Thoughts? It will be for a digital scoreboard for volleyball, so the lights won’t be changing very often or quickly like in a light show. I’m planning on using a 4-6Ah Ryobi 18V battery to power the whole thing.
Hello.
The output of the regulator should be stable enough to handle the LEDs and Raspberry Pi, so as long as your system does not draw too much current, it should be fine.
In my experience, at full brightness, WS2812 LED segments can draw around 50mA each, so that would leave approximately 2.5A left for your Raspberry Pi. So, it is probably fine, especially if you don’t need full brightness across the entire strip at the same time. Using a separate regulator for the Raspberry Pi is still a good consideration though.
Brandon
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