Hi everyone, I’ve seen this topic be discussed once but not in detail, I was wondering what the process was for powering the X1 with batteries, i know that i would require a Voltage regulator to ensure the board gets a consistent 12V, however, how does the SBC know what the charge of the battery is? it uses a 5525 Jack so there cant be any information being transferred, i appreciate any help on this matter, thanks!
i would also appreciate any resources for learning about this myself!
You can connect a high-precision DC voltage measurement module externally, and read the voltage value through the serial port
The X1 input voltage range is 11-16V. The 11V minimum is too high to use 3x3.7V batteries as you lose ~1/3 of the discharge curve with a cut-out at 3.6V per cell. The max 16V is too low to use 4 batteries as the full voltage is 16.8V…so a 12V Buck/boost converter is needed. I’m going with 4x 21700 5000mAH batteries (ie 4S) with such a converter.
Charging: A small 4S BMS module + a 4S charging circuit (16.8V). I’m on windows 11 (ie hard to import external battery levels to the OS without writing a driver). I’m not sure about the voltage measurement module being suggested above. In it’s stead I’d probably go with ESP32 ADC → serial.
The final (very easy) possibility is using a 12V PD USB-C Powerbank with a converter cable (Youyeetoo sells one!)…but no feedback. The powerbank I tried couldn’t produce enough current. Maybe others have had better success.
I’ll update later with a power management module that supports access to windows.
That would be quite amazing Charles. Microsoft haven’t made it easy to natively import external devices of any kind (eg connecting a USB GPS to Windows Location API).
My setup is based on 4x 21700s but I imagine a more general community would prefer using 18650s (probably 4s2p+). All involve the same discharge curve over varying durations, so reading that should be straight-forward. Cheers!
Is there any update on this?
You can use a PD Trigger cable to get 12V from a USB-C PD Powerbank. (USB-C to 5.5x2.5mm). I don’t have a powerbank as I use a homebrew battery setup as described above ( 20,000mAH → 9Hrs!)…but I do have the cable and other PD supplies and it works well.