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Li-ion Power Pack Charger questions — Parallax Forums

Li-ion Power Pack Charger questions

Hello!
I own this fellow, Li-ion Power Pack Charger - 2 cell and the page says it is compatible with
most batteries. Oddly enough it should say most batteries over 2000mAH for I have some in that series, and the thing ignored them. And the site does sell these High Capacity Li-ion Cell | 28987 which the site recommends. However my local store, (not Micro Center!) which is Tinkersphere, sells batteries in the 2500mAH ratings, which are 3.7V Lipo Battery 2500mAh: 18650

And of course matching holders. As it happens the good folks at Adafruit, make and sell a booster rig that translates the output of a single battery at that rating, into the levels that would run a Pi or a Beagle or the thing from Italy. I had originally planned on using either of the batteries to power a Pi Zero W to do something else entirely.

In the advent that the battery holders and the batteries don't work to power the booster to power the Pi, can I use those batteries to run that Parallax rig?
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Comments

  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    Not sure about that specific charger, but I have some cheap Li-Ion chargers (including some of the $1 Powerbanks where you add your own 18650. The cheap Chinese 18650s I have (despite amazing 10,000 mah claims and names like TRUSTFIRE) are at best ~400-500 mAH when new. Batteries and chargers actually work together for the most part, except when the batteries are really dead. Even the cheap chargers look for a minimum voltage before they start charging, so I have to carefully manually charge them a bit with a power supply. Once their voltage gets up to ~3 volts, I can put them in a charger.
  • W9GFOW9GFO Posts: 4,010
    ...Oddly enough it should say most batteries over 2000mAH for I have some in that series, and the thing ignored them.

    The mAh capacity of the cell should not matter.

    Like erco alluded to, I would check the voltage of the cells - too low and the charger will ignore them.
  • W9GFO wrote: »
    ...Oddly enough it should say most batteries over 2000mAH for I have some in that series, and the thing ignored them.

    The mAh capacity of the cell should not matter.

    Like erco alluded to, I would check the voltage of the cells - too low and the charger will ignore them.

    Hello!
    Well anyway I'll know if the thing will work with a BOE.

    I should have stated that the batteries were marked as being 2000mAH. They are part of the same series as DEWorld marked ones that I did buy from the late Radio Shack as related back in 2012. And he's right. I did that first thing's first, then. And I can state that the charger for them does see them so the generic ones that I bought both yesterday and on the Saturday previously, were also seen. (Last week.)

    Today I stuck both of them in the rig's holders. They fit snugly as they should be doing, meaning I can move them back but not a tight fit like the original ones.

    For the Pi project I have a flatpack battery already selected and waiting for pick up.

    Interestingly enough when I setup the charger platform to initially top off the batteries, the one that was charged last night, triggered the "I'm charged!" function and no light was seen. The one from Saturday needed to be topped off from last night's efforts, then I saw the blinking lights.
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  • A follow up:
    And it did not work with the BOE boards I chose. I do not think these batteries are a good fit so to speak for this device.

    I figure, as far as Parallax devices are concerned, is to place that order for two of the batteries shown on the pages for this one, and the smaller one. Definitely a case of returning to Square One.

    ---
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