| Electronics > Beginners |
| is it safe to power an Arduino project from a power bank? |
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| Brumby:
You will have some self-discharge to contend with, but it is nowhere near as bad with modern lithium ion tech as it was with NiCad and NiMH. Exactly how much you might need to allow for I will leave to others with better knowledge. The other thing I am curious about is you say you start a 2 minute countdown - but what event triggers this? A manual button press? A sensor? Another signal? I ask because there is a question hanging in the air..... Once your Arduino has done it's duty and is put to sleep, should the power bank also go to sleep - how will the Arduino ever get power again? Unless there is an external input or stimulus to get the power bank to turn on, the Arduino will not have any power to support a "sleep" mode from which it can wake up - it will simply be off. |
| engineheat:
A person would press a button (or two) manually to start the program. The goal of the program is to merely have the stepper motor do something after a delay so the person wouldn't have to come back (or wait around) to do it manually. But the whole process would be initiated by a human at random times. So the fact that lots of power banks would shut itself off is actually good for me. Power banks usually have a button that one can turn it back on. |
| mdszy:
I've tried using power banks to power my own projects, and have ran into the issue that other people have mentioned: power banks will shut down unless they receive a specific signal telling them to provide power. Not to shill for this company, I'm not associated with them in any way, but they make a power bank specifically made for powering electronics projects and will be always on whenever they're powered, constantly providing power. The company is Voltaic, and they have a line of always-on power banks. I've used them and quite like them. |
| ledtester:
How about running the project directly off a single 18650 Li-ion battery? Both Arduinos and 2x16 LCD displays can be run at 3.3V so all you have to figure out is the stepper motor part. Update: Here's a DC-DC boost converter which can deliver >200 mA at 5V with shutdown capability: https://www.pololu.com/product/2562 Update 2: Another option: just use a bank of 4 AA alkaline batteries. |
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