I’ve tried to find this question on the world wide web but could not find it. Sorry if I missed a similar topic.
So, will the photon work normally when I supply 5.9V (1A) to it? Or will it burn down?
The first place you should look for this kind of information is the Particle documentation, in this case, the Photon datasheet. There it says that 5.5 volts is the maximum voltage.
Thanks for your response. However, I am fully aware of that and that is the first thing I did before I came here. Now, for some devices the manufacturers handle a so to say “safe” max voltage. I am just wondering if 5.9V is still within the safe zone. That’s why I ask this here, as I assume this forum has a lot of people with experience with the Photon.
It’s normally 5V (USB), so I’m fairly confident that the 5,5V is already taking the margin into consideration. Why would you want to apply 5,9V?
Thanks for the response. Okay, so that would be of no use then. The thing is that I have an adapter which has a 5.85V output. That’s why I am asking you guys.
I made a prototype which lets you record sound and it will play back the sound for you. I used the photon and hooked up an RGB strip (fake neopixels) of 7 LEDs. The other part of this prototype is a board built around the ISD1820 chip. With the photon you can send a HIGH signal to the record or play back pin of the board whenever it needs to record or play back, thats all. So, I went to several thrift shops and bought around 10 adapters (just to be sure I had enough of them). I also had 2 others laying around. All adapters were (according to the label) 5V output and at least 1A, some of them were 1A, 2.5A and others were even 3A. I measured them and they all gave around 5.2V max. Here comes the thing, three 1A adapters make my prototype work perfectly fine and with the others (among them also 1A adapters) the LEDs won’t work or they show strange colors and only 1 or 2 light up. To me, that seems like the adapter is too weak, but that doesn’t correspond with the amount of amps indicated on the labels because they seem sufficient.
Quite the story… and its a slightly different problem than the first but can you guys help me with it because I am completely puzzled why this happens…
You can use some fairly common voltage regulators to get that 5.9V down to 5V, without much of a hassle.
As far as the neopixels go, the power sources might be ‘noisy’, and interfere with the operation of those LEDs. You could try to smoothen it out with some filter caps on the power lines.
I’m driving 126 neopixels in an application now for well over a year, with no problems, but they are never all illuminated and I hardly use white. You really need clean power and plenty of it.
A good investmen would be a DC power supply (or even better, like a boat, have a friend with one) that displays back the power consumed as your application is running. I know for example if you are lighting those 7 pixels white at full brightness, you are really consuming power.
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I don’t think your problems root in the voltage nor the max. current of your power sources but rather on the quality of the DC they provide.
Cheap supplies are often poorely filtered and hence produce ripple which will influence the time critical protocol of NeoPixels.
(as @Moors7 has pointed out already 
)
BTW, the Particle maker kit comes with a 4xAA battery holder.
This should give you some feeling about the 5.9V 
But consider, AC/DC adapters are not AA batteries!
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