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[Solved] I have an LG battery from a phone, can I use that? and unsure how to connect :)

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 2:45 am
by cturts
Hey!

I have this battery here I wondered if that's ok to use.

I'm using the Adafruit powerboost so it's a little annoying that it doesn't just plug in, but wermy's video guide scared me too much to use one of those batteries incase the house burns down haha :lol:

If I did go ahead with this, or any similar battery, how do you connect them? I can't imagine it's good to solder to the top of a battery?
Rodocop did mention using Pogo pins in another post to me, but also not sure how they would attach.

Think I'm going to have to cut out the battery compartment too so the battery won't be stuck down, so have to make sure it's a pretty good connection :)

Thanks!

Re: I have an LG battery from a phone, can I use that? and unsure how to connect :)

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 3:24 am
by oliddell
Dont see why not. I used a samsung galaxy s2 extender battery with about 4000 mAh. I removed the pogo pins and soldered a jst cable directly to the battery. Still need to update my build log below though :)

Re: I have an LG battery from a phone, can I use that? and unsure how to connect :)

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 5:03 am
by cturts
oliddell wrote:
Mon Nov 06, 2017 3:24 am
soldered a jst cable directly to the battery.
Woah, so if I had one of these... I would just solder to the gold bit on the battery?
Also, there are 4 gold bits, are two connections enough?

Thanks very much!

Re: I have an LG battery from a phone, can I use that? and unsure how to connect :)

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 9:17 am
by YaYa
Yes you have V+ and V-. The other two pads are useless

Re: I have an LG battery from a phone, can I use that? and unsure how to connect :)

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 10:23 am
by rodocop
Yeah, if you are going to use a battery like that, you'll have to solder directly to it. Like YaYa mentioned, only 2 pins are used, two are useless. If soldering directly to the battery, just be careful, and try not to expose the pads to too much heat for too long. It's easy to solder to.

As for the pogo pins, same idea, but you would solder to the pogo pins that correspond to the pins on the battery that you need to use. and then when the batter presses against it that would transfer power.

Check out YaYa GBZ in his signature, he uses the pogo pins I an talking about.

Re: I have an LG battery from a phone, can I use that? and unsure how to connect :)

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 4:20 pm
by cturts
rodocop wrote:
Mon Nov 06, 2017 10:23 am
Yeah, if you are going to use a battery like that, you'll have to solder directly to it. Like YaYa mentioned, only 2 pins are used, two are useless. If soldering directly to the battery, just be careful, and try not to expose the pads to too much heat for too long. It's easy to solder to.
Thank you so much!

So this is where I'm up to ha...
SpoilerShow
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So just waiting on my screen and I went for a screen holder/button well thing from Zeroboy

I've lined up the Pi so that I can get to the HDMI port, then I think I'm going to cut out a space so that I can get to the OTG usb port so I can play 2 player games with a wired controller if needed ha.

Will get hold of one of those JST cables and get it soldered to the battery woohoo :D

I'm gunna put the powerboost in the back section, where the cartridge will go, so that I can see the battery level LEDs, will cut down the aftermarket cartridge that I bought so that it fits :D

Re: I have an LG battery from a phone, can I use that? and unsure how to connect :)

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 11:55 pm
by oliddell
goes without saying be very careful when soldiering to the battery do not heat the battery up and do not bridge the contacts

Re: [Solved] I have an LG battery from a phone, can I use that? and unsure how to connect :)

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2017 6:01 am
by abrugsch
just to re-iterate... soldering directly to batteries is generally a REALLY REALLY BAD idea... but phone batteries have a small protection PCB in between the actual battery and the exposed terminals, so there is sufficient abstraction from the battery itself to not be a problem.
BUT you still need to be quick and not let the whole shebang heat up otherwise you'll get a real bang...

also, you'll notice that the battery is rated at 3.8v instead of the usual 3.7v this is fine as far as the charger is concerned, but the other way round would not be (i.e. a 3.8v charger on a 3.7v battery) there is a tradeoff however... you won't get the rated capacity of the battery so expect a lower than you normally would run time. the positive side of the tradeoff is you'll get a longer overall lifetime of the battery