Using 4 rechargable Li-po AA batteries

[smoki86]

Hi there,

if nothing goes wrong (when did that ever happen?) I should have the whole original battery
department left for fun activities

So why not use it for what it was really intentended to do and put 4 batteries in.

There are lots of ~1200maH AA Li-Po (3.6V or 1.5V) batteries on Amazon, so that would give me almost 5000maH which is more than I could ask for.

So....is it possible? How would the wiring look? I guess I cant (and shouldnt ) just put them in parallel and connect that to the poweboost and expect it to work. So, maybe someone more knowledgeable can point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance!

[Camble]

We've heard warnings about doing this, but I've also seen people say to make sure they are similar batteries and fully charged before you connect them in parallel.

AdaFruit say don't.

RC people say do

[smoki86]

Thank you!

After reading both I will try it. I will throw out the idea to have some spares in my pocket to change whenever.
I will get a charger too and make sure they are as identical as possible and hard wire them into one pack, then another whole pack.
I liked the idea to leave the battery department completely as is, but some small modifications are OK.

And if everything explodes (one more or less doesnt change much here ) I will report back (maybe not depending on how big this explosion will be)

[Fleder]

If you just wire the small metal pins (that hold the batteries in place) together (the right way) you might keep the battery compartment intact and just swap out the batteries for new ones (the same model).

[Camble]

Yes, be careful. The existing contacts will have the batteries in series.

[smoki86]

I know, and I could modify it to to have them parallel using the existing parts and have each battery be removable easily.
I just figured that it's safer to create a complete pack in the same form factor with minor changes to the battery compartment and replace the pack all at once when needed. I don't know who besides me will play with it and doesn't know how it's set up and puts another half charged one or a normal battery laying around in there

[statikeffeck]

If using the original battery Bay, why not use NiMH batteries? They're cheaper, and maybe safer?

I don't really know the difference between lipo and NiMH.

[Camble]

@statikeffeck The PowerBoost and BangGood supply are LIPO chargers.

[Spleen21]

Ive done exactly what you're asking. Will post photos in the morning. Ive been charging and monitoring temperatures. So far so good. I also have a battery protection circuit on the battery bay in conjunction with the powerboost and a disconnect/hard reset switch to completly disconnect power from the batteries if need be.
Looks great, works great.....no fires...... so far!

[Spleen21]

Here's what I've done.

The first photo shows where i"m at with it at the moment. It now has a disconnect slide switch on the red + lead, after the protection circuit. It's mounted just above the battery clip between the L1 and R1 buttons and i've shortened the knob so that its flush with the surrounding case. This means i can't bump it accidentally while using it.

You can just see the battery protection circuit on the side of the battery compartment in the backside photo.

You can also see a charge status LED on the breadboard that i'm working on. I've broken out the Powerboost LED signals to a single 3mm, Bi-colour, red/green LED. This way i can mount the single LED next to the 5v input to monitor the charge status. The transistors won't be there in the end. I only had a common cathode LED but i've ordered some common anode LED's which won't need the transistors.
I haven't hooked up the low battery signal yet but like the powerboost itself, the LED will glow red for low, amber for charge and green for full.