Hello everyone! Recently I came across a Justin 5200 mah battery (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNLnQ7RHDuk), and am wondering if anyone else has tried to use this to power an arduino. I’ve found that some people make use of usb portable chargers, and wonder if anyone has used that brand. It seems to get mixed reviews, but for it’s size and even at half power, has more than I need for some of my projects.
If you use portable chargers, what charger do you use? Or do you just stick to good ol’ batteries?
One big advantage of these power banks is they have integrated the battery and required electronics to regulate the output voltage and recharge the battery when its empty. Although I did not use this particular charger, you have to take care of a couple of things when use this kind of power sources:
- you have to be able to switch it on and off. I have one power bank which cannot be turned on/off manually. It starts only when it detect a smartphone or tablet connected so I cannot use it to power other electronic without hack it or the charging cable, I know it can be done but I don’t know right now how.
- to deliver enough power for your aplication - I saw on their website its capable to give 2.1 Amps, which for the Arduino itself is more than enough. Now depends what else you need to power besides Arduino, display, LEDs, servos, motors, etc.
- you have to be ok with it’s recharge time. If it last for an hour and take whole day to recharge it may not worth (from the video I understand it take 5 hour to recharge). A LiPo pack take an hour or less to recharge but you need extra electronics…
Depending on your particular use case, you are the one to decide.
Thanks for the info! I also Thanks for the info! I also took some time to research the internal mechanisms of general power banks, and found I might be able to hack the battery directly, and use my own electronics if I need to. Might be useful for others if they want those kind of batteries, or need to replace the batteries if they fail.
Anyway, thanks again for the information, I’ll keep this in mind in my search!
