Adafruit LC709203F LiPoly / LiIon Fuel Gauge and Battery Monitor - STEMMA JST PH & QT / Qwiic (ADA4712)

Support Product Questions
1

This is a placeholder topic for “Adafruit LC709203F LiPoly / LiIon Fuel Gauge and Battery Monitor - STEMMA JST PH & QT / Qwiic” comments.

Low cost Lithium Polymer batteries have revolutionized electronics - they’re thin, they’re light, they can be regulated down to 3.3V and they’re easy to charge. On your phone, there’s a little image of a battery cell that tells you the percentage of charge - so you know when you absolutely need to plug it in and when you can stay untethered

Read more

2

Wondering what is the difference between this, and “Adafruit MAX17048 LiPoly / LiIon Fuel Gauge and Battery Monitor - STEMMA JST PH & QT / Qwiic” ( SKU: ADA5580) ?

I assume they use different ICs, but both appear to do the same thing, and it looks as though the description was a copy and paste job. I have just come across a blog post which suggests MAX17048 is much more accurate than INA219.

As a customer I really want to know which is better (depending of course on my different purpose).

I recently bought a “DFRobot Digital Wattmeter” (SKU: SEN0291), and just now found that DFRobot sell a MAX17048-based “Gravity: I2C 3.7V Li Battery Fuel Gauge” (SKU: DFR0563) … and of course checking which of the other brands you sell have essentially identical products (and the difference in prices).

1 Like
3

Hi Donald,

For most makers there might not be too big of a difference, getting the SoC is a huge level up for a lot of projects.

From what I interpreted from the datasheets:

Accuracy

  • MAX17048 offers higher accuracy and features proprietary ModelGauge™ technology for better state-of-charge (SOC) estimation.
  • LC709203F provides efficient monitoring with a simpler algorithm but might not match the precision of MAX17048 for dynamic loads.

Available outputs

  • MAX17048 focuses on SOC estimation, voltage, and current.
  • LC709203F primarily measures SOC and voltage but excludes current sensing.

I guess now its a choice of price vs features, do you need the increased accuracy or current sense capability?

LiPo cells ought to have a much more accurate SoC reading from just the voltage, over a flatter voltage curve chemistry like LiFePO4.

Keen to hear your thoughts!