I wonder if there is anything that can provide 5 volts for raspberry pi pico USB I have tired my battery bank thing that provides 5voltish 10000mg capacity. The probelm is the circit that turns the 3.7 volts to 5 stops working very quickly and my raspbery pi pico device turns off.
I guess it does not draw enough current to keep the device on. Is there somethiing that will boost that lipo voltage to 5 and keep a raspberry pi pico goingj?
The idea is to power the pico with a big lipo battery for data logging temp/humidity and time to an SD card for a few days.
Hi Richard
Welcome
Yes most battery banks do shut down at low currents. That is because they are primarily designed to be a mobile charging source for things like phones etc and use the low current drain to signal end of charge. They are NOT designed to be power supplies. This discussion has been covered extensively on this Forum in the past.
And yes there are boost converters, some adjustable and some fixed 5V. Firstly decide how much current you need (mA), then double it to give yourself some head room. Then make sure your battery is big enough, remembering the battery is rated at X mA @ 3.7V and will be somewhat less at 5V.
Some converters are fairly modest at 500mA but I am sure there are some at 1000mA or more.
Search Core shop for “boost converter” and you will get 272 results. Maybe Core staff can recommend something a bit closer to your needs.
Cheers Bob
Bob is on the money here regarding phone chargers and low current shutdown. It’s well known in the DIY electronics community in fact that SparkFun released a battery bank with a low 20mA current shutdown, though this may still be too much if you are putting your Pico to sleep:
My personal favourite battery board would be this one:
It doesn’t boost to 5V, but you actually don’t need to boost to 5V if all sensors etc have a 3.3V supply, as the Pico’s regulator can handle anywhere from 1.8 to 5.5V to the Vin pin. This means one less ~85% efficient converter in your power path.
For an even simpler device, here’s one that sits on the Pico itself and hijacks the Pico’s USB port for charging:
