This question is tougher to answer than you might think.
P42A’s have lower capacity and at those lower power levels the ultra-high capacity energy cells like the 50S, 50E3, and M50A would be the clear winners. But at 25F the great low temp performance of the P42A might negate some or all of the run time advantage of those energy cells.
I don’t have enough info about how the energy cells perform at lower temps to be able to answer your question. My gut tells me the energy cells will still be the better choice down to 25F but I can’t say that’s anything more than a guess though…which could be wrong.
Not a huge difference between the P42A and those cells though at room temp.
It’s worth trying but I suspect that you won’t get accurate enough data at the low discharge rate for that charger. Or maybe I’m totally wrong…can it discharge at 2A or higher?
Could you post your pack diagram? I mentioned it in my vendor thread but ive yet to need 50mm nickel. Most DS packs are simply 2 single stack packs on top of each other with a bridge at the end
Yeah I was going to say the same @JoeyZ5 , though I’m less confident. Plus they’ve almost all got lower energy density than either of the types mentioned above
Is total energy definitely critical too? Because if you got with 3S2P of 18650s it’ll be pretty much the same (edit: I meant the same weight and size, not energy) though I guess LFP tend to come in 26650. I’m guessing you’re using like 1.5m of WS2812s or SK6812s, is the LED density 60/m or 144/m or something different? If you’ve tested it and know that 3-4A is right that’s helpful, otherwise the power requirements might be lower
It’s going on my snowboard, so I need it to be as light and compact as possible. Last year I ran 3s4p 18650s and that was pretty big and heavy. Three hours is all I need from the time it gets dark until the resort closes so I’m going down to 3s2p 21700
So last time I checked my 2x 3.25m strips of WS2811 (60led/m) was only pulling around 2-4A on the patterns I most often use. On white it jumped to around 5.5A but I never use that. Since then I did get new IP68 epoxy filled PVC strips so they might behave different.
I’m not sure what the actual voltages/currents/temps were from last year so I ordered a 3s Li-ion smart BMS. This will also help with waterproofing because no physical switch.
