Battery Power Module (with charging circuit) for Gadgeteer

18650 type batteries means you have somewhat more protection for over-charge/discharge than using LiPo (generic flat-style battery) packs as they have an inbuilt protection (the dimple on the positive end of the battery). I like the idea of using this style battery, you can get simple battery holders for them. But I don’t think I would want to rely on a single charge line for a multi-cell setup, i’d want to be able to balance charge them - that might mean you need to think about the maximum number of cells you want to charge.

Excellent points, thank you!

I agree 100% safety to me is #1.

Since it has not been decided on single cell or multi, i just threw that circuit out for a reference.

NOTE: When buying 18650’s it must say “protected”. There are many out there that are not.

[quote]NOTE: When buying 18650’s it must say “protected”. There are many out there that are not.
[/quote]
yes awesome point, you really do want to make sure of that. Luckily or not, the ones I’ve bought on ebay have all been ok :slight_smile:

I have designed an USB client Li-Ion module to be used with gadgeteer. The design is in prototype stage and i will order a few prototype PCB’s this week.

I like to share the features and design and hopefully get some feedback to improve the design.
I know there has been a dedicated WiKi page created but i do not know how to post info there, so maybe someone can guide me. Since the board uses a 8 bit silicon labs micro controller i realize that this makes the board less open for all others to makes changes.

Features.

  • USB port for IO and/or charging battery

  • Single Li-Ion / LiPo 3.7 Volt connection using 2 mm JST connector

  • 500 mA charge circuit

  • DC/DC converters 1 x 5 volt out and 1 x 3.3 volt out

  • D type connector to Gageteer board. Beside power and USB, two other IO pins are used
    one IO pin for 1Wire communication between gadgeteer micro and power board.
    one pin to send an interrupt signals, for example button touched or low power condition, power down request. etc

  • 3 Capacitive Touch/Sense buttons, 1 reserved for On/Off

  • Red/Green charge status led: Red = charging / Green = battery full

  • RGB status led
    RED = Power ERROR (5 Volt & 3.3 Volt is monitored by on board 8bit micro Silabs 8051F996)
    BLUE = ON
    BLUE slow soft blink = Standby
    YELLOW (blink) = Battery low

  • Battery gas gauge (TI bq27210)

  • 92 DB buzzer to warn @ low battery

Same thing at GHI. We finished the module and will be testing soon. This is cool, lets see how different our is from yours when they are all done.

Sound good !

I’d like to see GHI put a road map on the site, showing what modules are in the works.
Since GHI has been pumping out new modules with great speed. I think this would be a good idea to help prevent others for creating the same things.

This is a very much needed module! Looking forward to try it! :wink:

I second the roadmap!
I dont like spending the little time and money I have just to find out you guys are putting out the exact same module a week later :frowning:

+1 for roadmap.

Not a gripe by any stretch of the imagination, and I agree with Gus’ premise that there’s room for more than one version of a given type of module.

At the same time, as someone whose day job isn’t hardware dev, I would rather spend my limited tinkering time on something that isn’t already being built (and almost certainly better than what I could do) by GHI. :wink:

+1 for roadmap

RobvanSchelven obviously put a ton of work into that module. I personally would only want to create a module if there was an immediate need for it - not to compete with others. If I spent all that time working on it only to find out GHI was coming out with a “competing” module a few days later I’d feel like I’d wasted a lot of time that could have been used for something more beneficial to the community.

Looks like Gadgeteer team made a good one.

Now, how can we buy one?

Hello architect, where did you find this part?

Gadgeteer codeplex.

+1 on the module roadmap
I was designing an RFID module but then the last big list of modules was released and…

There’s no reason why there can’t be two RFID modules out there in the world. You can compete on price, or compete on features (but it’d be hard to compete on service ;))

Adding to godefroi’s post… I would suggest going right to NFC. It does everything RFID plus a whole lot more, like writing data (what a concept ;))

Good point NFC probably is the way to go. @ godefroi It would be very hard to compete on service :slight_smile: I still have a load of other ideas that i want to explore though and realistically there isnt much beyond reading tags that you can do with an RFID reader :slight_smile:

@ Architect I didn’t find this part on Gadgeeter CodePlex. May you provide a direct link?

@ GUS: May we have a preview of the functionnalities provided with this board?