PowerBoost 500 Charger

A 5V 500mA power supply from LiPo + Lipo charger for mobile project

The PowerBoost 500 Charger is the perfect power supply for your portable projects! This product incorporates a rechargeable battery circuit, so you will be able to recharge the battery while keeping your project running! This small DC/DC Boost converter can be powered by a Lilon/LiPoly 3.7V battery and convert this voltage to 5.2V continuous output to power 5V projects.

As with our popular 5V A1 USB power supply, the conversion circuit is set to 5.2 Volts (allowed by the USB standard) to compensate for the induced voltage drop in the USB cable that powers your project.
This little extra will allow you to use longer cables and consider larger current or even consider the use of a protection diode.
The 5.2V voltage can be used safely to power your electronic projects such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Beagle Bone while avoiding unexpected resets when calling for larger current (current causing a larger voltage drop across the USB cable because of the resistance of the USB cable).

The PowerBoost 500 Charger is articulated around a Texas instrument TPS61090 boost converter. This component has really nice features like the detection of too low voltage on the battery, an internal chopper of 2A, a synchronous conversion, an excellent efficiency and an operating frequency of 700KHz. See the TPS61090 data sheet !

• Synchronous operation means that you can completely disconnect the output by connecting the Enable pin (active) to ground/gnd. This completely disconnects the output.
• The 2A internal chopper (tip limited to ~2.5A) means you can get 500mA+ from a 3.7V LiPoly/Lilon battery. Adafruit had no problems getting 1000mA, just make sure you have a battery that can provide it!
• A "Low battery" indicator lights up in red (it is an LED) when the voltage drops below 3.2V, optimized for most LiPo/Lilon batteries.
• Has data resistance for 500mA 'Apple/iOS' charge rate. Weld the included USB connector and you can plug any iPad, iPhone or iPod for a charge at 500mA. 
  Not recommended for iPads that really need a 1A charge rate.
• Complete breakout for the pins: battery input, control pins and power output.
• Efficiency of more than 90% in most cases (see the performance graphs in the data sheet), low current at rest: 5mA when the module is activated (Enabled) and the LED is on, 20µA when the module is off (output and low battery LED off)

To make it even more useful, Adafruit has added a MicroLipo charger. The charging circuit is powered by a micro USB connector, and will recharge any Lilon or LiPoly 3.7V/4.2V battery with a charge rate of 500mA max. There are two LEDs to monitor charging, a yellow LED indicates that charging is in progress, a green LED indicates that it is finished. 
You can charge and boost at the same time without any problem, without interruption on the output power. This breakout can represent a great little "UPS" (un-interruptable power supply) for low-power devices. Keep in mind that the charge rate is 500mA max, if you continually need more than ~300mA on the 5V output then the battery will slowly empty because the charge rate is lower than the discharge rate. For example, this UPS system works well on a Pi (low consumption) but a BBB consumes too much power.

Excellent module to power your robot, Arduino project, nano computer such as Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone! For each order, you receive a fully assembled and tested card and a USB A connector (included but not welded).
If you power your project via USB, Weld the USB USB A connector (this should take 3 minutes). If you want to use a screw terminal block, you can buy a terminal block 2 pin 3.5mm here and weld the pins to the location provided for the USB connector. If you need a very compact assembly, you can weld the wires directly instead of the USB connector. 

If you do not yet know the power consumption of your USB device, you can use the USB Doctor to get an idea of the current needed.

Contains

The PowerBoost 500 Charger is delivered fully assembled and tested + a USB connector (this one is not welded). Do not include the LiPoly or Lilon battery but you can find it easily on our WebShop, just choose a model with a capacity greater than 500mAh. The awesome iPhone and charging cable are not included. You can also get a switch that you can weld to easily cut power.