Honey, I Shrunk Our LiFePO4

Both the new PCB and the #LiFePO4wered/Pi arrived while I was away, so I can now get back to hacking. But what is this? It's too long for the the Raspberry Pi Zero, as it was originally designed for the Raspberry Pi B, which is a little bit longer. But fear not, I anticipated that problem and ordered a smaller LiFePO4 battery, that should be just the right size. Now it's just a matter of replacement of the battery basket:

I guess I will need to cut that PCB a little bit too. Oh well. I also removed the female headers from the power module, in order to solder it flat on top of the hat. Unfortunately, there is one pesky SMD resistor getting in the way there, so it won't be completely flat.

In other news, I'm really happy with the through-hole buttons, they are much easier to solder and fit in that tight space -- although I didn't find color ones.

I still need to get a display for this -- either order another one, or desolder one from the first prototype.

Discussions

Patrick Van Oosterwijck wrote 07/17/2017 at 18:18

*lol* Nice hack! :)

Any reason you went with the larger LiFePO4wered/Pi3 and then hacked it to use a small battery, instead of just using a LiFePO4wered/Pi, which already uses the small battery?

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deʃhipu wrote 07/17/2017 at 18:27

I think I got the LiFePO4wered/Pi, not LiFePO4wered/Pi3 — at least that's what my Tindie order says. The battery I replaced is AAA.

I'm now thinking about dissecting the power module completely into individual boards, and designing a third revision of the PCB, which would hold the original battery basket (which is almost exactly the same length as the Pi Zero), and the boards...

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Patrick Van Oosterwijck wrote 07/17/2017 at 18:54

Oh yes, I see now! Don't mind me, it's Monday morning. ;)

In the future you are welcome to specify with your order that you don't want the parts assembled, it could save you some trouble.

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deʃhipu wrote 07/17/2017 at 19:10

Awesome, thanks!

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Patrick Van Oosterwijck wrote 07/17/2017 at 22:54

How well does it work with a AAA cell? What kind of run times do you see?

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deʃhipu wrote 07/17/2017 at 23:37

I haven't tried it yet. I will let you know. The battery claims 500mAh capacity, which is obviously ridiculous for that size...

Are you sure? yes | no

Power

Power Button

Discussions

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