How to charge the Lipo battery? and How long?

Help & Support Robots & Kits
1

How to charge the Lipo battery? and How long?
Should the power switch be on or off when charging?
I’m using usb to charge it.

2

Thanks! 10 hours of charging… is there anyway to turn off those blue LED lights? it’s a waste to leave them on when charging…

3

There is a LiPo jumper located at the left rear of the board - when it’s in place, the LiPo battery will start to change when you plug in a USB cable. If you plan to use non-LiPo batteries (for example 4xAA batteries) you need to remove the LiPo jumper. The power switch is separate from the circuit, so it does not matter if it’s on or off.

4

I am assuming you are referring to the DrfRobotshop Rover and that the charging circuit is the same across all versions. Based on these assumptions, here are a few notes concerning charging the Lipo.

It shouldn’t really matter but if you are powering up the board or other circuits, it can affect your charge rate.

This is actually your only option using the on-board charger, is the Max1555 is not connected to the barrel jack.

Coleman explained this above but I wanted to add that there is an led above the jumper marked as D2, which indicates that charging is occurring. With the power switch off, this led “should” turn off when your Lipo is fully charged.

This will depend on which battery you have selected, but you can get a basic idea by dividing the Lipos max mAh by the chargers max charging current. In the case of Max1555 over USB, the max charging current is limited to 100mAh. Then assuming you are using the 3.7V 1000mAh Lipo, the math works out to 1000/100 = 10 hours to charge. This is not perfect as the charging process can vary, but it is the simplest way to get an estimated charge time.

5

There is a jumper on right rear of the board to disable the blue lights or if you want you can solder a switch to the jumper pins to toggle it.

6