I’m hoping to have my design finished sometime in March! Take a read over the thread and let me know if you have questions or suggestions!
Are there people out there who needs a simple Battery Shield for your project?
It’s like the Moustach battery shield but minimal size.
What @timb is doing is great but if a simple version just battery charging and power to the 
core has a demand, I wouldn’t mind spending some time to rework the layout etc 
@kennethlimcp Actually, SparkFun and Adafruit both sell small LiPo chargers/boosters that have Micro USB inputs and 5V outputs. So you might want to check what’s out there before spending the time. That said, I imagine you could take the Eagle files for the charger and just make the board square. But I think a lot of the issue with the Mustachio “shield” isn’t so much the shape, but the fact it’s not actually a shield!
Anything that hangs off the USB connector is going to be hard to mount in a case and cause stability issues.
I’m not trying to dissuade you or anything, just suggesting if you have the talent to design boards your time might be served working on some other type of shield. (I might be biased, but I really want to see the ecosystem bloom and flourish!)
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@timb are there any with micro-usb connector like the mustachio?
My project requires a miniaturized power supply to reduce space and I dont intend to make a pcb to feed power through the vin pin.
Something modular and I can reuse it for other stuff like raapberry pi.
Maybe it sounds trival to just redo the shape and layout but that’s step 1. Im sure some users will find it handy with a simplle module should they not require the addtional solar inputs, fuel gauge etc… at least not for me with my project
Hmm, none with a Micro USB male connector, but you could get a male/male adapter or cable, or unsolder the female connector and put a male on down instead. By the time you rework the board, get them made and order the parts in low quantity it’s going to be kind of expensive compared to an off the shelf solution is all I’m thinking. Especially those USB male connectors! I’m having a hard time evening finding them in-stock anywhere!
The other thing to keep in mind is that out of the box my shield will act just like the existing battery shield. The Core stacks on top of it (they’re an identical footprint all around), only instead of having its own USB input, you can use the existing input on the Core. The battery is powered via the VIN pin of the Core and then backfed through the same pin when unplugged. It’s intended to replace the existing Battery Shield on the Spark Store and should sell at the exact same price point.The additional 10-pin GPIO header will also come not soldered on and the doesn’t have to be used at all, same with the solar input.
is it possible to use a Li ion battery with this shield instead?
@gerrit, not sure what you mean by “instead”. The shield @timb is making will handle LiPo and many other battery types so I suspect the answer is YES!
No I’m asking for the moustache board, the documentation only talks about LiPo batteries,
I would prefer to use a Li-ion battery instead of a LiPo.
Hey @gerrit,
LiPo and Li-ion is pretty much the same thing and you can safely charge with the moustache board.
Is that your concern? 
you are right, I’v seen a lot of burned LiPo stuff, mainly remote controlled aircrafts.
So I would rather like to use Li-ion. Great to hear that I can use it.
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You’re probably right. I read around for the charging profile etc before giving you an answer. The main difference is SIZE and energy density.
I think the Li-ion would not prefer to give out too much current so you should check the Battery specs and see what’s the nominal current? Anything like 400mA and above should be a really safe ballpark figure.
Hope you have fun and do keep me updated!
I was just considering supporting your kickstarter for the Electron, but before doing so I wanted to look up how much your battery shields cost. In so doing I discovered that your only battery shield is a mustache. This makes my decision so much harder due to the unwieldy design :((((. Please in future revisions consider having a side-kick battery shield that doesn’t contain the charging capability or something, the mustache really screws up a lot of projects I had in mind due to its non-stackability and the general appearance.
Thanks and good luck!
Wait up! The moustache is being redesigned (thank god!). The new battery shield should have a footprint similar to that of the Core/Photon, if I’m not mistaken. It might even be stackable. Let’s ping @will and @mohit for some further comments.
Don’t let the battery shield stop you from getting one of these awesome s
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@V7Theory, @Moors7 is right! The new Power Shield (we’re out of stock of Battery Shields anyways) has been redesigned to be roughly the same width and height as the Photon/Core, and will be stackable. Don’t let that stop you from getting an Electron! 
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Awww - I was hoping for a battery beard shield April fools joke 
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Actually, it’s going to be a top hat with a monocle, which should suit the moustache quite nicely
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That is excellent news. With that in mind I went ahead and backed the project with 2 hrs to go, good turn around time!
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Further to the issue of LiPo battery management since there are some folks with questions. It is very important to have smart electronics for both sides of the battery equation: charging and discharging.
Without smart electronics you can easily over charge a LiPo. You can also easily discharge it to the point that it is ruined.
Best case in either is that the battery is ruined and you lost your money. Worst case is that the battery starts to self-destruct, which can manifest as a puffed up, hot, stinky battery and I’ve heard, but not experienced, a fire. These are not your standard bunny batteries.
I had a bunch of bad experiences with LiPo when they first came out and the chargers were not smart, and there was no discharge protection on the motor controllers.
I’m sure the new battery shield has charging/discharge IC’s together with plenty of protections and buck/boost converters.