My development kit arrived last week. I plugged it in and was immediately greeted with the red LEDs indicating power transfer. Awesome! Thus begins the development process-
Step 1: Charge a Battery
My sub is going to run a motor, a few servos, and probably a RaspberryPi...so what voltage battery do I use. There are two options.
- Single Cell Lipo
- Advantages: Low voltage means the wireless charger can easily power a charge controller.
- Disadvantages: rPi would like higher voltage...there's some ways to do this, but it's complicated. Either boost the voltage from the LiPo, or connect directly to the 3.3v reg on the rPi. I'd have to do this to a rPi: Running The Raspberry Pi On Batteries | Dave Akerman
- 12V Sealed Lead Acid
- Advantages: Tried and true technology, heavy (good thing with a sub), voltage will power anything.
- Disadvantages: Size, probably a longer charge time, needs a more complex charge controller.
With that in mind, I'm going to try both and see what works better. I spec'ed out the following:
- LiPo System
- A charge controller: Adafruit Micro Lipo - USB LiIon/LiPoly charger [v1] ID: 1304 - $5.95
- Some battery on ebay: Traxxas 6637 Latrax 1S 3 7V 650mAh Replacement LiPo Battery Alias Quadcopter | eBay
- Lead Acid System
I'd like to see how these two systems perform against each other. They each have inefficiencies in different places...can't wait to see how they line up on the bench. Any suggestions on a battery/charge arrangement, send them my way.
-Rich