So I’ve been attempting to make a handheld, I’ve got everything else for it fine and dandy but batteries is one place I get messed up on.
I’ve been trying to find a battery that can discharge at least 3a, I’ve got a board that can step-up, act as a UPS and charge and all that other stuff I need it to do but I can’t find anything on Core Electronics that is rated for above 1a and I’ve also seen that some products on the site don’t even tell me what its actually rated for.
This is a touchy one because messing with Lipos is always going to be a dangerous adventure, I would recommend making sure you are fully up to date on the safety aspect when handling them. Now that I have made that necessary point though…
When looking at fast discharge and high current discharge rates for Lipos, I would suggest nothing less than the Sony VTC6 18650’s. These batteries are commonly used for people who use E-cigarettes though they are great for applications like this as they have a rated 15A continuous discharge rate. They aren’t stocked by us at Core Electronics as they aren’t commonly used for basic electronics, though they would definitely be my suggestion.
Don’t worry I know how to safely deal with them to the point I’m a bit too cautious along with the “she’ll be right” phrase before I do anything dangerous, its just finding the proper batteries with properly rated discharge rate in australia since the place I used to get them overseas is now just not reliable anymore. Sorry for any distress I caused you haha.
Thanks for the suggestion on the Sony VTC6 18650’s I’ll definitely check that out.
If you want high discharge rates, you don’t want 18650 Li Ion batteries. Those things are extremely bottlenecked.
The Li Poly batteries used in drones and combat robots have “C ratings” that can exceed one hundred. These are to some degree lies from marketing departments, but they’re still vaguely accurate. You can get a feel for how much more powerful than a 18650 they are.
You can get these from shops such as NextFPV, PhaserFPV, RisingSunFPV, etc.
Warning: Raw LiPo batteries are completely unregulated and can and will burn your house down if you treat 'em wrong. Here’s what one of my XT60 connectors did in an instant when I plugged it in wrong.
Yes, that’s a splatter of liquified metal ejected violently from the bullet connector.
XT60 is rated for 60 amps continuous, and can probably handle a spike of hundreds of amps for a few seconds before melting solder. Clearly, this exceeded that, by a lot.
I decommissioned that battery immediately by taking it outdoors and putting it on concrete in a sturdy metal container (army surplus ammunition can), discharging it slowly to 0v and then sticking it in salt water.
I’d check out the 3-pin (PiJuice) range of batteries - they are made to handle a connection to the Pi (~15W) so will be able to handle higher loads than the 2-pin variants, with the added benifit of an NTD sensor!
Hey Liam, thanks for the info. This is one of the ones I WAS gonna buy from core as it appears to suit my needs but it doesn’t tell me what its rated for which is why I was hesitant since I need at least 3a. Would you know at all if it would be rated for 3a?
So I had a look at the PiJuice, now I could be wrong here but just with the sites recommendation of using the 3-pin with a PiJuice it could have a rating of around 2.5a?
Fair point, unfortunately I can’t find the gauge and material comp. for the wiring of the CE06797 nor CE06798. I’ll get in touch with Liam and see whether we can get the max. current ratings for those batteries confirmed too based on the leads that they come with rather than just the chemistry and C rating.
