-------------------- Tech Support Tips/Troubleshooting/Common Issues --------------------

Coin Cell

I tested the PowerCell [ https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11231 . The coin cell was not able to power a 5V Arduino. This would probably be the same for other boost converters. The output power of the coin cell is probably be too low to be boosted for the boost converters. You would need a battery that is able to output more power. It would be better with a LiPo battery with nominal 3.7V.

... I may be a bit behind.. but ya'll may want to review/revise your schematic for this one. The two pins for Enable and Power Save are connected to the VBATT net, instead of to the IC... ?

Is it ok to have the battery always in here? As in, while charging, under load, on standby.

A few issues with mine: - Pulling EN low is still outputting ~ 1V on the output. - Setting voltage jumper to 3.3V is only outputting 3.18V - Charge current is ~ 50mA, not the stated 100mA Is the device broken or is this to be expected?

Can i use this to charge for 200mAh lipo battery ? (Use 5v Power supply) I read the description, the charging current is 500mAh. I worried excess charging current allows. Thank for support me :D

Has anyone had problems with the EN pin not turning the regulator back on after being pulled to ground and then back to Vbatt?

For me pulling EN down to ground works like a charm and shuts off the regulator. But then when I pull it back up to vbatt (via a dpst switch) it doesn't come back on. Only disconnecting and reconnecting the battery gets it running again.

Any clues what might be going wrong here?

Isnt it easier and cheaper just to purchase a powerbank. that way you have battery and booster circuit. You can get 2600mAh for 1 dollar on ebay.

I'd like to see one of these with the D+ and D- pins broken out, so the battery can charge without requiring an additional USB connector, for USB-driven battery-backed devices.

I suppose it'd be possible to simply use the 5V in with another USB breakout board, but that seems somewhat inelegant given that there's already a USB connector onboard.

Sparkfun, can you please start breaking out D+ and D- on your chargers? Would be great. Smaller would also be nice.

Should I try to use this in a solar charging system? What happens when the input voltage drops below the minimum operating voltage when using the alternate 5v source from solar power? Side q, is using a regulator (7805) appropriate, or is there a better option for regulating the volts from solar as the 5v input for charging. Thanks anyone.

Can the power cell be used as a UPS? If the lipo is fully charged, yet the Powercell stays connected to Solar and micro-usb(wall-adapter), will the load (i.e. Arduino Uno) in this case draw current from the lipo, or instead directly from the wall adapter, preventing the lipo to discharge? I'd like to minimize unneccesary (re-)charge cycles as long as the unit is connected to the wall adapter and solar panel (in order to keep battery life at a maximum), and I'd like the 5V/lipo booster to jump in the moment the power provided by the micro-usb (wall-adapter) turns off. So ideally, only drain the lipo in case the wall adapter is off (i.e. mains is gone). Many thanks!

Hi, I have two questions 1) Can use the TPS61200 booster circuit while charger is connected means the USB is connected and charging the battery and simultaneously I am using the booster circuit to power on my circuit. 2) I have seen some comments mentioning that booster circuit continues to drain the battery if OUTPUT 5V/3.3V is not connected to any load, How much current it is ? So will it damage the battery ? How can I change the UVLO setting to set to 3.2V ? I think it is quiescent current I am talking about. My system doesn't have the switch so I cannot use EN pin to switch the OUTPUT disable to save the battery. 3) Is there any indication if battery is fully charged ? Regards Bishan

It emits a low-volume high frequency tone while charging and it is giving me a headache. Anyone else experiencing this?

You've broken out PS and apparently pulled it high. That means "disabled" for PS, according to the 61200 docs, but contradicting what you've written in the tutorial (which is saying that both EN and PS are enabled by default). You also don't discuss what we might want to do with PS in your tutorial. Since you've bothered to break it out, you must think that some people would be interested in using it... any advice on why/how? Are most people safe not using it at all?

Charger board very hot! I have this charger connected to a 1 cell battery (sparkfun prt-08484). I have the enable pulled to ground. I am charging the battery through the board by connecting the micro USB to a wall charger. The whole board got very hot. Tis does not seem correct. Cn anyone tell me what I adoring wrong and how to fix it?

Can you explain "The micro-USB charger uses the MCP73831 and allows you to charge 3.7V LiPo cells at a rate of 100mA max. If you want to charge at a faster rate, you will need to connect a separate power supply to the pins labeled '5V' and 'GND' under the label 'charge'. "

Your schematic shows A) 2KOhm on PROG, which should mean a 500ma output charge current, and B) the USB and pad inputs tied together.

I NEED a version of that that can handle Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS). Like this one but with your great Open-source policy, I won’t buy it if it’s not clearly and proudly open source. https://www.adafruit.com/products/2465 For a more in depth explanation click on the link .

I NEED a version of that that can work as an Uniturepted power supply (UPS) like this one but with your great opensource policy, I won't buy it if it's not clearly and proudly open source. https://www.adafruit.com/products/2465 more in depht explanation => it need to be like that: Since the built-in battery charger has load-sharing, it will automatically switch over to the USB power when available, instead of continuously charging/draining the battery. This is more efficient, and lets you charge-and-boost at the same time without any interruption on the output so its fine for use as a "UPS" (un-interruptable power supply).

Can this charge at a higher rate than 100ma if supplied through the 5v port?

What is JP14 and JP13 for ? on the shematic ? on the booster circuit, thanks a lot ;)

I'm surprised there is no breakout for VBATT. This would be useful for a soft power switch or for battery voltage monitoring. Also a breakout for the STAT pin would be useful for LED indication on the outside of a project.

This modules are awesome... but I miss a feature: You should have provided a pin to weld an external charge led. Is difficult to remove the onboard led, in order to weld microwires to an external led.

is there a fritzing part ?

I'd like to charge two 2.7 V ultracaps in series (for backup power) and feed an Arduino Uno (with the USB port) with a solar panel. The ultracaps are shortcircuits when they no charge at all then I need to limit their current because otherwise the Arduino shut down until the ultracaps raise their voltage. Is this product useful for that?

@Sparkfun: Have you guys ever considered re-drafting this board to fit a cell holder as well? Something like a 14500 Lipo (AA size) or the 18650 cells many folks might salvage from old laptop batteries? Having this board prefitted to a holder, or even just mounted metal contacts for the cell would be awesome!

Not happy with the product.

Already broke 3 of these units in 2 days.

1) The micro usb basically falls off just by looking at it. The reason is that its not a through usb that solders on the bottom of the USB, but is basically kept on by 2 tiny solder drops on the top. Cant get back to working order

2) the battery connector jams right in and the only way to get it out is to break the housing. (Solution is to shave off the groves on the battery connector)

3) en grnd vcc holes are not correctly situated if you are to believe the manual and you are trying to use an SPDT switch. The EN port should be between vcc and ground. Otherwise you have to break off one of the stems and solder mid connector to en and one of the side connectors to ground.

Maybe I am wrong about part 3 buy I never got a response so this is my presumption.

All in all if you are buying this, make sure you are VERY gently the USB port

Where could I find BOM for this product? Thanks anyone

Anyone know how to get the JST connector out?

While LiPo batteries have a voltage of roughly 2.5 to 4.2V, they drop off fairly quickly after they hit 3.5V, which means using this part in a 3.3V project will run the converter in the extremely inefficient (~75%) step-down region for most of the time. Consequently, I wouldn’t recommend using this part for 3.3V projects that are LiPo-powered.

Most designs I’ve seen actually just use a buck converter to step-down the voltage – when the battery voltage drops below 3.3V, the converter will track the input voltage. This may seem counter-intuitive, since you don’t “squeeze out” all the juice in the battery – however, the increased efficiency of the buck solution means you get longer battery life overall.

One article I read indicates at 300 mA output current, a buck converter got 9 more minutes of battery life than a buck-boost converter of similar configuration: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1273123&page_number=3

Obviously, if you’re building something with ultracaps or other low-voltage stuff with UVLO disabled, this is a great part to use. And it definitely shines at 5V output – I’d just stay away from using it in a 3.3V configuration with LiPo batteries.

MORE CURRENT!!

Come on SF, throw us a bone. Give us something we can put between a 3.7v 2Ah LiPo cell and our Raspberry PIs, beaglebones, etc. I’m willing to pay for it, it just doesn’t exist

I have a 3 cell lipo battery. Will this work? Can someone show me a product that will charge a 3 cell (each a 3.7 v and 2000mah)

Can I use this circuit to charge multiple Lipo's in parallel? (All the same size, 1000mah). Thanks

As Member #126605 already mentioned, tying EN and PS via 10k Ohm to VBATT is not that good of an idea. A much higher resistor like 500kOhm should do it, or even better, tie the inputs via resistor to GND and add a jumper to pull it high when enabled.

I observed a strange behaviour when starting up an Arm controller board (OLinuXino imx233): I had short voltage dropdowns to 4V or so, which led to continous restarts. Then I removed the C2 100nF cap at UVLO, which removed this behaviour. Maybe my findings help sombody and a next revision removes these flaws. I would expect a reduced responsiveness to battery voltage change with C2 installed, but the contrary seems to be true. TI datasheet (which is available in a more recent revision than here) doesn't mention anywhere the need for filtering UVLO input.

1. Why is the undervoltage lock out at 2.6V? Shouldn't you stop discharging lipo cells at ~3.6 to avoid damage?

2. After the low voltage lock out, is it safe to leave the battery in "indefinitely"? (ie, without further discharge/damage)

can i use this with a 3.7 lipo and a COM-11288 heating panel or with the regs overheat?

A word of warning for those thinking of using the STAT line for both states. The "CHARGING" LED is connected between VIN and STAT, the "CHARGED" LED goes between STAT and GND. When the charger is not in use that leaves a couple mA quiescent drain on the battery which might be undesirable for most battery applications....

The USB is limited to only 100mAh in charge? Is not 500mAh?

I put it to charge the computer's USB, after a while, I realized that the "MCP73831" very heated. I thought it was normal because the battery was carrying ... After a while, when I recheck the charger and the led was off, I thought the battery was 100% charged, but was not, after about 15 minutes of use, the battery drain completely, then went on to charge again, and after a few hours the LED still flashing, and the battery never charged!

So? I lost my $ 19.95 on the first day of use?

Can I use this to charge the following battery: PANASONIC - PA-LN19 - BATTERY, LI-ION, 1S1P, 3.7V, 2.9AH?? (http://nl.farnell.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?SKU=1900168#accessories)

I'm trying to charge a battery (sorry, no idea how much mAh, because it is permantly covered) via USB connected to my computer, but the red light turns off after a few minutes. Whey I unplug it and try it again it turns on for less time and turns off again. This does not mean that the battery is charged, right? Because when I use the battery it only powers the devices for a few minutes. Any idea what this could be?

I am having a problem with this unit. When a battery is connected, no load is present AND the charge cable is disconnected, the battery is run down to almost 0v. This is terrible for (unprotected) Li-Poly cells, it ruins them and I have a couple of dead cells because of this.

I have checked the UVLO jumper, its open, so one would assume that the under-voltage protection circuit would kick in and stop the battery from draining below 3.6/3.7v? From what I read and heard is that the booster is constantly on regardless of load and this is what drains the battery, BUT shouldn't the under-voltage protection kick in?

I have had to add a switch to disconnect the battery from the charger on my projects when not in use. What am I missing?

I thought I might be able to power an Arduino Due with this, but am skeptical after giving it a try.

I loaded the "fade" sketch and had an 10mm LED and 220kΩ resister on pin 9, soldered the 3.3V jumper on the PowerCell, hooked up SFE's 6Ah battery, and connected the grounds. The VCC went to the Due's 3.3V pin.

The results weren't good. First, the Due's "L" LED (associated with digital pin 13) was only sort of half-bright, when normally it is full bright with other power sources. Also, the sketch wasn't running. The LED on pin 9 was at full bright. So I pressed the reset button and then LED on pin 9 burned out.

Due's regulator was bypassed using the 3.3V pin, but the PowerCell's regulator should have taken its place. Maybe someone can explain why not. I don't think I can use this to make a LiPo-powered Arduino -- it was kind of an expensive lesson.

I've been thinking about making a portable power bank using this board alone by adding a female usb connector to the output and adjusting the D+ and D- pins with the extra resistors like in MintyBoost3. I was just wondering if the 600mA is enough for some of the modern devices or will it be a problem?? Please also advice if I'm missing something with the whole idea. Thanks

I used a photo Darlington (from NTE) with a 10K resistor pulled high on the collector, emitter to GND, and connected the collector to EN to make my circuit only operate after dark. So, I can charge with a solar panel during the day and run arduino lights at night automatically. I put a switch across the EN to GND connection in parallel with the Darlington so I can switch the whole thing off manually.

I have an Arduino Esplora that I’m going to use this with. If I run a 5V line from the Esplora to the 5V charge pin and also to the Vcc pin, will I be ok? I want the power from the Arduino’s USB connector which will be exposed to be available to charge the battery and when I disconnect it, I want the battery to take over.

I will have a switch to allow me to turn off the system when it is not connected to USB and I know I’ll have to disable this board.

Hey.... Nevermind (as Rosanna, Rosanna Dana would say), I just discovered the landing page and it pretty much answered my questions! Thanks!

I'm A total newbie at this.. so here goes: I have a device that requires 4v minimum. The device will draw a maximum of 1A for 500ms per event. I'd like to power it with a single cell 3.7v lipo. Will the PowerCell work for this app? Thanks!

I plugged my lipo battery into this, and the inductor in the upper left corner started to get so hot that it melted the plastic coating on the board. I quickly unplugged the battery. After measuring with a multimeter, I discovered that the positive and negative of the connector on the board for the battery were shorted together. The battery did not get hot though, only the inductor. What could I have done wrong? Help please

The datasheet for the TPS61200 definitely says I can pull 600mA (figures 1 and 2), just at a lower efficiency of around 50-60%. Is there anything wrong/dangerous with doing this? I don't know why you or the datasheet says 600mA when it can go higher at a lower efficiency (which is okay in my application). I am hoping to pull between 600-1000mA for no more than 2-3 minutes every 15 minutes. I really would love this board as it does the charging and boost converting in one, which is perfect in my application and don't have time to make my own PCB.

Need to know before I purchase. Thank you!

Can I use this with the Polymer Lithium Ion Battery - 6Ah (PRT-08484)? I know that this says to use it for single cell only, but I wanted to make sure. Thanks!

How can i get it to output 5v@1000ma(1A) or more? what could i do?

The red light will light up even there is no battery connected?

There are a few of changes I'd like to see.

VBATT should be available as a pin, both for powering something directly from the battery and for battery monitoring. There is a pad for it but the connection is rather hard to solder to as the hole is capped by the JST connector.

The STAT signal should be broken out for monitoring by a CPU.

I would eliminate the resistor pullups on EN and PS and add a solder jumper from EN to VBATT and another jumper from PS to VBATT or GND. To use either the (dis-)enable or power saving feature, the resistors draw 370 uA each when you ground one of those pins. This greatly overshadows the 55 uA quiescent current.

Otherwise a nice, useful part

Hi I'm using this product with the PRT-00339 battery I disabled the UVLO on this board because the battery has it's own... My application is running high power LEDs so I will typically drain the batteries to the point where the UVLO of the battery engages... The problem is when I plug in 5V for re-charging the charger will not begin until I unplug and re-plug the battery. This is not good because I need the battery to be pertinently connected but also recharge from dead. Is there any trick to fix that?

I am confused.. When I pull the EN low, does the board continue charging Li-po or shut down everything?

Any suggestion so that I can pull low automatically at night? I am doing a solar tracker project.

I was thinking to use this in order to power a 3.3V circuit (no 5V around) from a LiPO battery. My problem is that I need to be able to power my circuit when I have USB connected (and this I think can be accomplished with this board) but also when there is no battery connected.

If I tie (with a piece of wire) the VBUS to the VBATT net (TPS61200 VIN) I'm afraid that I could damage the battery. Is this correct? If yes, any idea of what could be a quick turnaround? Thanks!

I just checked the unit I have received and found that it has 3.2 volts cut-off voltage, not 2.6 as written here. When battery level is below 3.2 volts there is zero at Vcc. That is very good since 3.2 volts is best cut-off voltage for battery I have.

I still curious how that may happen.

How much does it weight and what is the effect on the current drawn from the battery. For example if the battery provides 250 mAh what will it be after I connect it to the power cell.

I have a few questions before I order. I'm sorry if they are dumb questions or if I overlooked something but I just want to make absolute sure what I am buying is what I want.

1) What happens when the supply voltage falls below 5V? I see from the MCP datasheet that the minimum supply is 3.75V.

2)I would also like to know what the minimum supply current is. I ask this because I am using a solar panel system as the supply source.

3)Can you recommend a voltage regulator that I could use in conjunction with this in order to supply a constant supply voltage?

4) Using the "charge" inputs as supply, is there any reason I could not charge the battery using this device and discharge it using a load as well?

Thanks

I purchased three of these for use with XBees, and moved the solder jumper to 3.3v. Of the three, one entirely failed to work, and another output 4V, destroying an XBee. Purchase this product at your own risk.

Hi I was wondering if it would be possible to increase the max current output for the 3.3v to around 300mA (as stated in the TPS61200 datasheet)?

So how do I get the DRC in batch pcb to accept and not fail the pin spacing (TPS61200)?????? obviously you guys did it. Thanks

Do I constantly have to pull en low to keep the battery from discharging of can I just pull it low before I turn everything else off and it won't discharge even without the en pin being pulled low constantly?

Is this product suitable for building a UPS for a Raspberry Pi? I'm thinking of using the Power Cell and a PRT-00339 1000mAH battery to provide my Pi with roughly 1 hour battery backup (hopefully much longer in sleep) in case of failure.

What I'm actually trying to achieve is an in-car solution that sleeps (but doesn't completely power off) the Pi whilst the vehicles ignition is off, providing a quick start-up as soon as the ignition is turned back on. I'd use a 5V 2A regulator connected to the Power Cell, connecting the Pi to the output, as soon as power is applied there should in theory be enough juice to power the Pi unabated whilst charging the battery.

I'm hoping that I can somehow implement a power management system whereby the Pi is put into deep sleep with no ignition power and then woken up when ignition power returns, and hopefully the 1000mAH battery is strong enough to run a Pi in deep sleep + the Power Cell in power saving mode for a few days, although I can envisage jumping up to the 2000mAH equivalent.

From reading this description, the landing page, and the comments, this looks like the board I need to connect a solar panel (PRT-07845), battery (PRT-00341), and 3.3v arduino for an "always on" project out in the woods. The arduino code uses a lot of sleep mode and other power reservation techniques that would allow a stand alone battery to power this project by itself for months, possibly years. I want the power to be as self-sustaining as possible, so I wanted to add a solar cell to recharge the battery daily.

I am concerned because I read the comments below that indicated that the power regulator itself can drain a battery in a few weeks even with no load. I realize that the solar panel will help with recharging the battery during the day, but during winter or long periods of overcast days, I can't have the power regulator sucking this battery dry.

I am a beginner, so maybe I am misunderstanding a concept here, but it seems I need to be able to make up for the draw of the power regulator with the charge of the solar panel before I even consider my project power draw. Is this correct? Is this the right path to go down for this type of project? Thanks!

If my power source device generates about 6.1V, do I need to put a 5V voltage regulator before the board or does it tolerating a little over 5.5V?

Can I use 2000mAh battery there as well?

Thanks! :)

Please with next revision, reverse the enable line (ie. via a mosfet) so that GND will turn on Switching Regulator and no connection will turn it off. This allows better power saving (no dischage through pullup resistor R2). It is also much easier to control from an Arduino.

noob question:

Can I charge the LiPo just using the secondary source (5V/Gnd)? I have one of those LiPo batteries (110mAH 3.7V) from sparkfun and this charger. I switched the jumper to 3.3V (although it looks like the jumper is just for the USB charging circuit) and have two wires (hi/gnd) tied to an arduino fio's 3.3V/Gnd pins to the charger's pins labeled for 5V/Gnd. The status LED of the booster turns on but I haven't been able to use the battery yet. Not sure if it just takes a long time to charge this way or if the threshold voltage is not being met (maybe only works with 5V power supply??).. The arduino has a USB plug in from my PC and the board is powered up and 'charge' LED is turned on.. I was trying to charge this way because I didn't realize my micro USB adapter on my cable is a different size than what is needed for the charger/booster. I'll probably just get a proper cable for cheap, but thought I might be able to avoid that scenario..

Thx for any feedback!

NOTE: I had the older version charger and LiPo plugged in to that for a while and I think the battery has pretty much discharged so perhaps I need to do what Dr. Bogger did...

I used mine stock, as they came, without the LVDO jumper. I plugged in 2 brand new batteries I bought at the same time. Charged them up. Let them sit for a couple of weeks. Now the batteries are pulled down to zero, nothing, nada. I'm not overjoyed at the moment.

Where can I purchase the JST connector for this board?

Am I able to safely charge multiple li-po packs? will this overcharge?

Is it possible (and/or advisable) to pull current from the battery and keep the Vout at the same time? I need to pull around 1-1.5 amps from lipo for maybe 1-2 secs @ 4 intervals, is this doable for this configuration? The voltage out of the battery would be acceptable (3.7-4.2) I just need more current, plus steady stream on the regulated Vout to remain intact while doing so..

Mine is putting out 6.5 volts with a 3.7v LiPo and no load. I have the output going to a USB port, with straight voltage to the voltage pins, and a voltage splitter supplying 3/5 voltage to the data pins. But, my iPod (second gen Nano) refuses to charge. I think my iPod is rejecting it because of over voltage, but I thought I would check to see of anyone else has done this and had similar problems.

The MCP73831 is supposed to be used to charge 4.2V LiPo cells. Is it really OK to use this to charge 3.7V cells?

This looks interesting. But why does it not have any reverse polarity on board? It already has several features, adding this would make it even better.

I was wondering, why is the UV lockout way down at 2.6v? Assuming you're not discharging super fast (>1C I'd consider fast for an electronics project unless your lipo was TINY) a higher threashold of say 3.1v would seem to be a lot safer and still use >99% of capacity.

can you point to an example of something like this that does have polarity protection so I can compare the differences in the circuits?

OK I feel kind of newbish to ask this but from looking at the pictures I can not tell. Can I charge a battery and power my systems from this board at the same time?

Does this board solve the issue with not being able to charge the battery if the battery voltage gets too low?

Cuz right now I am stuck with a dead battery, and a non-working system, cuz it allowed the battery to get too low, and now it wont charge the battery at all, and my circuit wont even turn on..

Thanks for the new board revision. This makes it much easier to create low-power standby modes. It would be even better if there was an easy way to remove the PS/EN pull-up resistors!

Thank you for adding "enable" i remember asking. It will be great if you could add LTC2950. If required I can send eagle files

Would this work for a project in which I´m using a small dc gearmotor as an alternator? I need to charge a LiPoly single cell battery mechanically for a very low power project.