After installing the new hackergadgets boards with a 10k lipo I’m having some weird power issues. It runs fine when plugged in, but when I unplug power it runs for about 5 minutes and then dies. Battery indicator seems to be working fine. When I first installed the lipo it showed ~60% and then charged up to 100% with the cable attached. Battery voltages appear normal (4.2v when fully charged and still almost that after it dies).
will it die if you leave uconsole and will not touch it?
may be it’s an assembly issue (often happens when uconsole magically dies)
I’m usually holding it, but not moving.
I just shook the snot out of it with the cord disconnected and nothing happened.
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I’m starting to think I just got some bad lipos. It looks like there may be some significant voltage sag under load. Need to double check with a meter when I get home.
Did you charge the batteries to 100% seporatly before putting them together inside the uConsole?
I don’t have a standalone lipo charger with a PH 2.0 connector. I’d have to connect it to a meshtastic node or something to charge.
Most of the Lipo come with the protection board. The protection current normally set to 3A for most of them. But the uConsole require 5A for the peak, especially when use it with the NVMe SSD. Make sure your Lipo protection current is higher than 5A.
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That might be it. I am a also seeing the voltage drop below 3.6 when the system is drawing >2.5A and then it dies shortly after. If you lower the load before it dies, the voltage pops right back up to almost 4v. Either way, I think I need a different battery.
Yeah, when drawing high current, the battery voltage drops under the minmun safety voltage of the PMIC, then the PMIC will cut off the output. You can use two small lipo, and connect then in parallel for high current.
like 2x18650?
the problem, i think, is that if you put 2 LiPo in parallel, we then need to worry about balanced charging which isn’t currently available. unless there is a way to tell if the PMIC is 5A, a single Lipo isn’t really the best.
Nope, only in series will need the balance circuit. You don’t need it for parrallel. They will balance itself. The higher one will charge the lower one. Eventully, they will at the same voltage level. The official battery board did the same thing, two 18650 batteries in parrallel, and there is not such balance circuit on it.
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technically speaking… while i agree, in reality, it isn’t the safest. The reason is that LiPo batteries can degrade un-evenly due to chemistry and differences within pouches. This can lead to one pouch being discharged faster then the other. this can then end up with a slight potential difference between pouches resulting in one pouch unintentionally charging the other. This unintentional backflow can cause issues.
IMHO, even if parallel, there should be protection circuit to guard against this. Especially during the charging cycle, there should be circuitry to ensure that both batteries are being charged up to the same level all the time, and that it should discharge quite evenly. just my 2 cents.
This is so confusing. I bought the NVME battery board and a battery then had to figure out which JST plug was needed and had to buy 10 of those to get one for the battery. $75.00 later and my Uconsole still won’t boot. I would have been ok with all that if the dang thing would work. The battery show 4.12vdc and the power light just flashes when pressed.
Does this mean that the battery must be charged at 5A or does in need a battery that outputs 5A?
Does this mean the that the Lipos protection circuit must support 5a?
Does the following battery meet the required (unpublished) specs?
LISHEN Sp9858102F-C 3.8v
M74 7315N04 314
10000/38. 50wh
mdx. cv4. 4v
It looks like you might have a bad crimp on the negative pin and the plug isn’t inserted all the way.
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No, I’m testing the power output on the leads coming out of the JST socket on the board. The crimps are tight and the board is getting power.
And that’s with the usb c unplugged?…..
Correct, the power cord unplugged.