Battery Drain

[Lphillimore]

So I thought I would share an issue I have noticed only recently.

On 2 of my builds (not present on others) I am noticing that a fully charged unit will go totally flat after around 1 week without use.

The exact timing of when it goes flat is unknown but a week is my estimate.

The two builds actually differ:

1) V1 PCB with additional battery monitor. 1200mah battery. TP4056 (non protected).

2) V2 PCB with build in battery monitor. 1200mah battery. TP4056 (non protected).

Initially I only noticed this on the V2 build and as I only have one V2 build, assumed this was the common factor, until that is, a V1 started doing the same.

I have other builds that I have definitely left for over a month and still power on fine. These also use the TP4056 charge modules.

So far I have swapped the charge module on the V2 build. My thinking is that it was a bad module. This has not fixed the issue however and having re-tested after leaving a week, it was indeed flat.

It's possible I have an entire batch of bad TP4056' and used these on both of these mintyPis. My next action will be to swap out the module for one of the TP4056' with a protection circuit, ruling out the 'bad batch' theory at least.

While I test this, anyone have any bright ideas?

My wiring is pretty good and had this been isolated to one device i'd be more inclined to look into it. That said, I may re-wire the whole thing down the line if I cant identify the issue

[rodocop]

Hey, so that sounds like one of my minty pi's, I believe it was a v2 PCB as well, using a TP4056, and all the usual stuff. I remember going to turn it on after a few days and it would be dead (noticed it twice, not sure on exact times).

What I thought it might be was the sound card. Since I had that wired directly to the TP4056, before the power switch, I figured it was having constant a draw on the battery. I then wired it to the PCB, bundled with the other wires on VCC and GND, and re flowed all power connections. That seemed to resolve the problem.

It stopped acting weird after that, and I have successfully left it for weeks at a time with no battery issues. It is now sold, and the buyer has not noticed, or mentioned any issues to me. So, in the end, maybe it was the sound card, and maybe it was me re flowing the connections...Not sure if that's helpful, but if you have your sound card wired like I did, might be worth a try.

**EDIT** I also was using the protected TP4056.

[dryja123]

What I thought it might be was the sound card. Since I had that wired directly to the TP4056, before the power switch, I figured it was having constant a draw on the battery. I then wired it to the PCB, bundled with the other wires on VCC and GND, and re flowed all power connections. That seemed to resolve the problem.

Keen observation, Rodocop. If the USB sound card is wired directly to the TP4056 is will receive constant power. You can test that theory with a multimeter though.

[Lphillimore]

I can't see it being anything other than this. Good work, guys.